The American College of Cardiology today elected Kim Allan Williams, M.D., FACC, as president for the upcoming year at its 64th Annual Scientific Sessions.

Ami Bhatt, MD, co-director of the adult congenital heart disease program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, shared her thoughts with Cardiovascular Business about sessions at the American College of Cardiology’s scientific session that she considered most exciting.

Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today announced results from a pre-specified exploratory analysis of the investigational IMPROVE-IT study of more than 18,000 patients presenting with acute coronary syndromes. The new analysis shows that VYTORIN® (ezetimibe/simvastatin) – which combines simvastatin with the non-statin ZETIA® (ezetimibe) – reduced total (defined as initial and recurrent) cardiovascular events by 9% compared to simvastatin alone (incidence-rate ratio [IRR] 0.91, 95% CI 0.85-0.97, p=0.007; by treatment group, 4,562 vs. 4,983 total events, respectively). These data were presented as part of this afternoon’s late-breaking featured clinical research session at the 2015 American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions.

The human monoclonal antibody evolocumab plus standard therapy not only lowered low-density lipoprotein cholesterol but it also cut the rate of cardiovascular events by about half compared with standard therapy alone, according to results presented March 15 at the American College of Cardiology scientific session.

Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that 18-month (78-week) results of a Phase 3 trial of Praluent™ (alirocumab), an investigational therapy, involving 2,341 high risk patients with hypercholesterolemia were published online in The New England Journal of Medicine. In the ODYSSEY LONG TERM trial, Praluent 150 mg every two weeks reduced low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C or “bad” cholesterol) by an additional 62 percent at week 24 when compared to placebo, the primary efficacy endpoint of the study, with consistent LDL-C lowering maintained over 78 weeks.

Before heading off to ACC.15, Yair Briman, general manager of healthcare IT with Philips Healthcare, answered a few questions about the conference for Cardiovascular Business.

Heading into ACC.15, Medtronic's Mike Coyle, executive vice president, cardiac and vascular group, talked about what Medtronic the industry and Medtronic's focus at the conference.

An electron can be in two places at once, and now, in a sense, we can, too.