You are in > manchester.com  > News > Campaigners welcome new anti-clotting pill on NHS

Health

Campaigners welcome new anti-clotting pill on NHS

21/04/2008

Campaigners have welcomed a new anti-blood clotting pill that has been made available on the NHS.

Pradaxa is the first new blood-thinning treatment in more than 50 years and will initially be used to prevent clots after hip and knee replacement surgery when the risk of clotting is high.

Without treatment with anticoagulant drugs hip and knee replacement patients are at greater risk of deep vein thrombosis and potentially fatal pulmonary embolisms.

The UK thrombosis charity Lifeblood is hopeful the new drug will eventually result in more effective treatments for thousands of other patients at risk from heart conditions and strokes.

Lifeblood medical director Beverley Hunt said: "The number of deaths from VTE [venous thromboembolic events] is nothing short of a public health emergency.

"The development of new drugs to treat this problem is terribly exciting. The potential benefit to the NHS is enormous."

Judy O'Sullivan, cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, added: "A safe and effective anti-clotting medicine which does not require regular monitoring will provide a significant step forward in improving care for patients at high risk of developing a blood clot.

"We look forward to seeing how Pradaxa may benefit patients who have had orthopaedic surgery, and hope that it will prove to be useful for a wider group of patients."

The makers of Pradaxa, Boehringer Ingelheim, are conducting a clinical trial to see how the drug could work across four further therapeutic areas.

"The first licence for our novel oral anticoagulant Pradaxa marks an important advance and milestone in anticoagulation therapy and the prevention of potentially fatal thrombi (blood clots)," commented Boehringer Ingelheim board member Dr Andreas Barner.

"In addition, we remain confident in the potential for Pradaxa to satisfy the unmet medical needs of even more patients and physicians in the future."