Centocor Gets Boost With Publication of ReoPro Drug Study
Bloomberg News
July 9, 1998, 6:30 p.m. ET
Centocor Gets Boost With Publication of ReoPro Drug Study
London, July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Centocor Inc. got a boost with
the publication of a positive study of its ReoPro heart drug in a
leading medical journal.
Saturday's issue of the British journal The Lancet will
carry the study, first released in March at the American College
of Cardiology meeting in Atlanta. It found that use of ReoPro
along with tiny devices known as stents, which are used to prop
open arteries, could -- compared to stents alone -- cut by half
the risk of complications in patients undergoing an artery-
opening procedure known as angioplasty.
''This study demonstrates the emergence of a new standard of
care for patients undergoing coronary stenting,'' said Eric
Topol, a top cardiology researcher from the Cleveland Clinic who
led the so-called Epistent study.
Publication of the study could help the Malvern,
Pennsylvania-based biotechnology company, because some doctors
give more weight to studies printed in peer-reviewed journals
than those released at meetings when deciding which drugs to give
their patients.
During angioplasty, doctors snake a balloon-tipped catheter
through a blood vessel until it reaches a clot. They then inflate
the balloon and rupture the plaque. Stents, when used, are placed
in the arteries to keep them open.
Centocor's ReoPro, sold by Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly &
Co., is known as an anti-platelet drug because it keeps the tiny
blood cells known as platelets from sticking together and forming
potentially deadly clots. Similar drugs are now sold by
Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based Merck & Co. and a
partnership of South San Francisco-based Cor Therapeutics Inc.
and Madison, New Jersey-based Schering-Plough Corp.
The Epistent study included 2,399 angioplasty patients
treated either with ReoPro, stents or both. Only 5.3 percent of
patients in the ReoPro-plus-stents group died, had another heart
attack or needed another emergency procedure, compared to 6.9
percent of patients who used ReoPro alone and 10.8 percent who
got only stents.
''In order to prevent death or a major heart attack,
stenting combined with the use of better anti-platelet therapy
certainly must be preferred over stenting alone,'' Topol said.
''If improvement of anti-platelet therapy is adopted worldwide,
more than 2,300 deaths and 40,000 heart attacks could be
prevented each year.''
In March, Centocor shares climbed 5 percent the day after
the Epistent study was released. Stents are sold by companies
including Johnson & Johnson, Guidant Corp., Boston Scientific
Corp., and Arterial Vascular Engineering Inc.
--Kristin Jensen in Washington (202) 624-1843/bd |
