Drugs Cut Heart Risk; NZ Patients Unlikely to Benefit From Cocktail

New Zealand’s highly regulated drug- buying regime means blood- pressure patients are unlikely to benefit from a modern cocktail of drugs that can drastically cut heart attack risk.

A European study published in the Lancet medical journal this week, the Ascot trial, showed a new drug combination outperformed the more common traditional regime.

People with high blood pressure who took amlodipine (a calcium channel blocker) and perindopril (an ACE inhibitor) were 25 per cent less likely to have a stroke, 15% less likely to have a heart attack and 25% less likely to die from a cardiovascular event than those who took a more traditional combination of a beta blocker and a diuretic.

The study, which involved 19,000 patients, is considered so persuasive that an expert group has been formed in the UK to advise the Government on its impact.

However, Professor Mark Richards, director of the Christchurch Cardioendocrine Research Group, said New Zealand’s “extremely tough pharmaceutical environment” meant it was difficult to get new medicines approved by drug- buying agency Pharmac.

Perindopril was not subsidised at all in New Zealand and amlodipine could only be prescribed with a special dispensation, he said.

Richards said the Ascot trial was a “powerful” study. “There’s no doubt that it gives meaningful differences in rates of events such as the need for surgery, non- fatal heart attack, fatal and non- fatal stroke,” he said.

Richards expected the research would reawaken debate between Pharmac, doctors and consumer groups about funding new medications.

National Heart Foundation medical director Norman Sharpe said the study was large enough to be able to show small reductions in risk and to be of note.

“The study does suggest that the newer drugs are probably superior,”Sharpe said.

He said Pharmac tended to be “slow and defensive” and did not take into consideration overall health gain when considering medications.