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Current guidelines for the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) establish that bronchodilator medications are central to the symptomatic treatment of the disease. Regular treatment with long-acting bronchodilators is recommended as more effective and convenient than short-acting bronchodilators, because the long-acting agents provide greater bronchodilator efficacy and symptomatic relief, increased tolerance to exercise, and improved rate of exacerbations and quality of life test scores. Dosing regimens requiring less frequent dosing also provide improved treatment compliance. Indacaterol is a novel once-daily ultra-long-acting β(2)-agonist bronchodilator now approved in the European Union for maintenance bronchodilator treatment of airflow obstruction in adult patients with COPD, to be administered as 150 or 300 microg once-daily dose by means of a single-dose dry powder inhaler. This review focuses on providing a clinical practice-oriented synopsis of the data generated from the randomized trials during the clinical development of indacaterol, published as of the time of writing. Indacaterol has been shown to provide effective 24-h bronchodilation and a fast onset of action, with an efficacy at least comparable or superior to current bronchodilator therapy standards and with a favourable safety and tolerability profile within the β(2)-agonist drug class.