Cardiology came back to New Orleans with ACC.26 and amid the magic of “The Big Easy” some more subtle trends emerged, reflecting a maturation of cardiac science and business. Here are Cardiac Wire’s top takeaways from the conference.
- A Drop in Late-Breakers: This year only saw 27 late-breakers presented, down from ACC.25’s record-breaking 53, with an even split between procedures (13) and pharma therapies (10) as well as three imaging-focused studies and a food delivery trial rounding out the conference. The one late-breaker spurring the most controversy was CHAMPION-AF, which cast doubt on LAAO as an effective procedure.
- ACC Attendance is Dropping Year-Over-Year: Alongside fewer late-breakers came fewer attendees, with this year’s ACC in-person attendance numbers dropping steeply to 10,863, down from 16,302 last year. Paired with the quieter research discussions, this led to a milder energy on the expo floor.
- More Specialized Pharma: On the pharma front, this year’s late-breakers and attending companies skewed toward highly specialized drugs for complex diseases like HCM, ATTR-CM, PAH, HFpEF, PSVT, and more, reflecting a biochemical maturity in how we understand and treat the heart.
- Statins as a Standard: If you’re a pharma company focused on lowering LDL-C, the bar to measure against is still statins. That’s a fact backed up by decades of research, cheap generics, and nearly 100M Americans who take the drug. Statins are here to stay and any LDL-C therapy worth its salt has to show it goes beyond their benefits.
- AI as a Cardiac Feature, Not Product: Last year’s ACC saw AI adoption increase across cardiac-tech companies. This year it was more of a background term than a selling point, as AI technology conversations now focus more on impact and integration.
- Some Interventions are Better Than Others: While ACC is a broad cardiology conference encompassing all cardiac sub-specialties, the interventional research proved that some interventional innovations (like valve-in-valve, PCI, and DCB) are confidently effective while LAAO for AFib stroke prevention isn’t (CHAMPION-AF).
- GLP-1s Are Still Top of Mind: Maybe one day we’ll write an ACC round-up that doesn’t mention GLP-1s, but today is not that day. Whether it’s due to strong results, successful marketing, or cardiologist adoption, many of the conversations we had (including with imaging and AI companies) featured the drug class in some way or another. It’s worth noting there were no GLP-1 late breakers.
