Monday, September 01, 2014

HEALTH - New Heart Drug Promises Significant Improvement

"New drug may ‘change the foundation’ for treating heart failure" PBS NewsHour 8/31/2014

Excerpt

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  As we reported yesterday, an experimental heart drug developed by the Swiss pharmaceutical company, Novartis, shows promising results.

The new drug currently referred to by its codename “L C Z 696″ may change the course of treatment and prolong the lives of patients suffering from heart failure.

The results of the study on the new drug are being presented this weekend in Spain at an international cardiology conference and were also published yesterday by The New England Journal of Medicine.

For some insight, we’re joined via Skype from Windham, New Hampshire by Clyde Yancy, he’s a professor of medicine and chief of cardiology at Northwestern University.

So, Professor Yancy, there are millions of people around the world, who suffer from heart disease and heart failure, what’s so different about this drug and why does it work better than what’s available today?

CLYDE YANCY, Northwestern University:  Well Hari, thanks for your interest.  Those millions of people you talked about should be elated because there is a new therapy now.

It’s not just an additional therapy, but it is a significant improvement over what we already had.  This really is better and brings a lot of hope to a lot of people.

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