Pharmaceutics

This page contains key pharmaceutical news on drug recalls, FDA clearance, safety communications and research. In cardiology, key pharmaceutic agents include antiplatelet therapies, anticoagulants, hypertension drugs, and drugs for heart failure and arrhythmias.   

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Specialists share experience prescribing a historically expensive cardiovascular medication

Tafamidis received FDA approval in May 2019 for the treatment of transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM). It has a list price of $225,000 per year.

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Machine learning predicts drug cardiotoxicity

Machine learning is playing a key role in predicting all major forms of drug cardiotoxicity, potentially helping reduce late-stage clinical trial failures.

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America’s most expensive CV drug needs a 93% price cut

A 92.6% reduction in the list price of tafamidis—an effective but ultimately unaffordable drug designed to treat transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy—would be required to make the medication accessible to the average heart patient, researchers reported in Circulation Feb. 12.

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Cardiology’s Challenge for the 2020s: Turning the Trend on Rising Mortality

The latest numbers on cardiovascular deaths put the focus on innovative ways to point the trend line down again.

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Ticagrelor alone reduces bleeding risk after PCI, DAPT

Results from the late-breaking TWILIGHT trial suggest that, among high-risk patients who have undergone PCI and completed three months of dual antiplatelet therapy, it’s safer to continue treatment with ticagrelor alone rather than add aspirin to that cocktail.

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Shorter-duration DAPT looks favorable for patients at a high risk of bleeding after PCI

A shortened, three-month course of dual antiplatelet therapy might be a safer bet than 12-month treatment for patients at a high risk of bleeding after PCI and implantation of a drug-eluting stent.

FDA OKs Pfizer’s tafamidis to treat cardiac amyloidosis

The FDA has cleared two new drugs, tafamidis and tafamidis meglumine, for the treatment of cardiomyopathy caused by a rare disorder known as transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (ATTR-CM).

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Apixaban, clopidogrel a safe combo for ACS patients with AFib

NEW ORLEANS — An antithrombotic regimen of apixaban plus a P2Y12 inhibitor such as clopidogrel lowered bleeding events and hospitalizations compared to warfarin plus clopidogrel in a cohort of patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib) and a recent acute coronary syndrome (ACS), according to results of the AUGUSTUS trial.

Around the web

Ron Blankstein, MD, professor of radiology, Harvard Medical School, explains the use of artificial intelligence to detect heart disease in non-cardiac CT exams.

Eleven medical societies have signed on to a consensus statement aimed at standardizing imaging for suspected cardiovascular infections.