{"id":1057,"date":"2010-11-16T12:53:50","date_gmt":"2010-11-16T12:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2010\/11\/the-drug-war-to-replace-warfarin.html"},"modified":"2010-11-16T12:53:50","modified_gmt":"2010-11-16T12:53:50","slug":"the_drug_war_to_replace_warfar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2010\/11\/the_drug_war_to_replace_warfar.html","title":{"rendered":"The drug war to replace warfarin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"atrial_fib_stroke.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/files\/atrial_fib_stroke.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"255\" align=\"right\">Following a <A HREF=\"https:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748703670004575617000252286836.html\">report<\/A> out yesterday that the blood thinner rivaroxaban is at least as good as warfarin at preventing strokes in patients with erratic heartbeats, doctors and analysts are abuzz with <A HREF=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/idUSTRE6AE4VF20101115\">predictions<\/A> about which new stroke-prevention drugs will come to dominate the marketplace.<\/p>\n<p>The success of rivaroxaban \u2014 based on a 14,000-plus patient study and reported Monday at the American Heart Association&#8217;s annual meeting in Chicago \u2014 comes on the heels of last month\u2019s approval by the US Food and Drug Administration of a similar anti-clotting agent called Dabigatran for the same condition. \u201cBoth of these drugs are game-changers,\u201d Douglas Zipes, a cardiologist at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Bloomington, told the <A HREF=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/science\/la-he-blood-thinners-20101116,0,688776.story\">LA Times<\/A>.<\/p>\n<p>Three more pills for treating atrial fibrillation, a heartbeat irregularity disease that can lead to bleeding complications and ultimately stroke, are also moving toward possible marketing approval in the next few years, and it remains unclear which drug will come out on top. More than two million Americans suffer from atrial fibrillation, and analysts estimate that sales for medicines in this class could top $20 billion a year.<\/p>\n<p>Comparing the two leading contenders, rivaroxaban, which is marketed as Xarelto by Bayer and Johnson &amp; Johnson, performed slightly worse than Boehringer Ingelheim\u2019s Dabigatran, also known as Pradaxa, in relation to warfarin. But the two trials considered different study populations and the drugs have not been tested head-to-head.<\/p>\n<p>Rivaroxaban has the advantage of only requiring one pill per day, compared to Dabigatran\u2019s twice daily dose. But Dabigatran, by being the first to market, could have the leg up over it\u2019s as-yet unapproved counterpart.<\/p>\n<p><EM><A HREF=\"https:\/\/www.nhlbi.nih.gov\/health\/dci\/Diseases\/af\/af_all.html\">Image<\/A>: <span class=\"caps\">NHLBI<\/span><\/EM><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following a report out yesterday that the blood thinner rivaroxaban is at least as good as warfarin at preventing strokes in patients with erratic heartbeats, doctors and analysts are abuzz with predictions about which new stroke-prevention drugs will come to dominate the marketplace.&nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2010\/11\/the_drug_war_to_replace_warfar.html#wpn-more-1057\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2010\/11\/the_drug_war_to_replace_warfar.html\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}