Sanofi’s Lovenox cuts risk of repeat heart attacks

BARCELONA (Reuters) – Sanofi-Aventis SA’s anti-thrombotic
drug Lovenox reduces the risk of death or new heart attacks in
patients undergoing artery clearance more effectively than an
older — but still widely used — medicine.

Researchers told the World Congress of Cardiology on Monday
that an injection of Lovenox, known also as enoxaparin, was
significantly more effective than unfractionated heparin in
patients undergoing angioplasty after suffering a heart attack.

Angioplasty is a non-surgical intervention in which a
catheter is used to open narrowed arteries.

A new analysis of data from a large clinical trial found
the risk of death or recurrent heart attack after 30 days for
patients on Lovenox was 10.7 percent, against 13.8 percent for
those on unfractionated heparin, Dr Michael Gibson of Harvard
Medical School told the meeting.

“Based on these results, we believe that the enoxaparin
strategy is now preferred to unfractionated heparin as an
anti-coagulant regimen to use in ST elevation heart attack
patients,” he said.

The advantages of Lovenox over unfractionated heparin in
the study, which was sponsored by Sanofi, were observed without
any significant difference in bleeding rates. Dangerous levels
of bleeding can be a problem with anti-coagulant treatments.