#ACC21: Pfiz­er, Bris­tol My­er­s' Eliquis flops in post-heart surgery pa­tients, spurring an 'un­ex­plained sig­nal' in cer­tain deaths

Pfiz­er and Bris­tol My­ers Squibb’s non-war­farin blood thin­ner Eliquis has raced out to be­come the most pre­scribed drug of its class on the mar­ket — even over­tak­ing war­farin’s long-time lead. But in tricky-to-treat pa­tients af­ter a valve re­place­ment, an in­ves­ti­ga­tor-spon­sored study couldn’t turn up ben­e­fit and raised a trou­bling safe­ty sig­nal.

Eliquis failed to show ben­e­fit over stan­dard of care in pre­vent­ing se­ri­ous clin­i­cal out­comes af­ter a transaor­tic valve re­place­ment (TAVR) and was linked to an “un­ex­plained sig­nal” in a sub­set of pop­u­la­tions with a high­er rate of non-CV deaths who did not need blood thin­ners apart from the surgery, ac­cord­ing to da­ta pre­sent­ed Sat­ur­day at the vir­tu­al Amer­i­can Col­lege of Car­di­ol­o­gy meet­ing.

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