Sanofi Aventis announces new Lovenox data for PCI patients

Sanofi-Aventis has claimed that Lovenox (enoxaparin), the anticoagulant, can reduce the risk of death or recurrent heart attacks in patients who have undergone percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) after exhibiting ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI).

The claim comes following the publication of the results of the PCI-ExTract-TIMI 25 study, in which patients received either Lovenox or unfractionated heparin (UFH).

Designed to study whether or not Lovenox would demonstrate superior efficacy and safety in comparison to UFH treatment, the trial revealed that 10.7 per cent of PCI patients are likely to die or suffer repeat heart attacks over 30 days, compared to 13.8 per cent of UFH patients.

In addition, there were fewer observed strokes in patients before and after PCI for Lovenox therapy patients than those taking UFH.

C Micheal Gibson, managing director of the TIMI study group at Harvard Medical School, commented: “We believe that these results are important because they show that enoxaparin is a more effective treatment for STEMI patients undergoing PCI compared to UFH, the current standard treatment of care.”

“As the use of enoxaparin both delays the onset and reduces the occurrence of repeat heart attacks, the window of opportunity to perform PCI following fibrinolytic administration is larger than that with UFH,” Dr Gibson concluded.

According to the cardiologist.co.uk, PCI is sometimes known as angioplasty or stenting – a procedure that has a 98 per cent success. However, this is less in cases where an artery is completely blocked before the operation.

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