Ivabradine, sold under the brand name Procoralan among others, is a medication, which is a pacemaker current (If) inhibitor, used for the symptomatic management of heart-related chest pain and heart failure.

[3] Ivabradine acts by allowing negative chronotropy in the sinoatrial structure, thus reducing the heart rate via specific inhibition of the pacemaker current.

[6][7] In people not sufficiently managed with beta blockers for their angina, adding ivabradine can further reduce heart rate and improve total exercise duration.

[3] The clinical use of ivabradine is predicated on its mechanism of action on sinoatrial nodal tissue where it selectively inhibits the funny current (If) and results in a decrease in heart rate.

It should also not be used concomitantly with potent inhibitors of CYP3A4, including azole antifungals (such as ketoconazole), macrolide antibiotics, nefazodone and the antiretroviral drugs nelfinavir and ritonavir.

[6] Other common adverse drug reactions (1–10% of patients) include first-degree AV block, ventricular extrasystoles, dizziness and/or blurred vision.

Blocking this channel reduces cardiac pacemaker activity, selectively slowing the heart rate and allowing more time for blood to flow to the myocardium.

Given the selective decrease in rate without loss of contractility, ivabradine may prove efficacious for treatment of congestive heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.

[19] The SIGNIFY trial randomised 19102 patients with stable coronary artery disease and an elevated heart rate greater than 70 beats per minute were assigned to an intervention of ivabradine or placebo in addition to standard therapy.

[20][21] In the SHIFT study, ivabradine significantly reduced the risk of the primary composite endpoint of hospitalization for worsening heart failure or cardiovascular death by 18% (P<0.0001) compared with placebo on top of optimal therapy.

According to TV2's research of financial statements of the company, in the period of 2004-2006, the couple received a salary of over 20 million DKK (2.7 million euro) from their company, while during the same period, Kim Fox was chairman of the taskforce recommending ivabradine, and as president of the European Society of Cardiology, he also had the role of presenting the research results and recommending ivabradin as a "gold standard" treatment at a European cardiological conference in 2008.

Danish chief physician Niels Holmark Andersen commented that Fox's conflict of interest was of an "oligarchal magnitude" and "the mother of all conflicts of interests" because Fox was involved in all parts of the process, that the clinical results did not sustain claims of the superiority of the medication which has serious adverse effect, and further that Servier had marketed ivabradine "aggressively" and offered physicians exclusive trips to castles in France to promote the medication during the decade of 2000-2010.