A new study finds that rivaroxaban, the anti-clotting drug that developers Johnson & Johnson and Bayer AG hope will become a strong rival to warfarin, can prevent certain blood clots in hospitalized patients, though it carries a higher risk of bleeding. As Dow Jones Newswires reports , the study is being presented today at the American College of Cardiology’s annual scientific meeting — which has already featured research on treating patients with both heart failure and coronary artery disease, cardiac catheterization via the wrist and inserting heart valves through catheters rather than surgery. The Magellan study looked at clot prevention in patients hospitalized with acute illnesses. It found rivaroxaban performed no worse than Sanofi-Aventis’s anticoagulant Lovenox in the first ten days of hospitalization, and outperformed Lovenox plus a placebo for up to

35 days, DJN says. But patients receiving rivaroxaban experienced twice as much bleeding as those in the control group — a result J&J notes hasn’t been seen in previous comparable research. Right now the drug is available in Europe to prevent certain clots in patients recuperating from joint replacement surgery. J&J and Bayer are seeking U.S. approval for that and other uses, notably atrial fibrillation. A study presented last fall found rivaroxaban to be at least as effective as warfarin in preventing strokes in patients with the heart condition. As the WSJ reported then , a host of new drugs are jockeying to replace warfarin, the warhorse of blood-thinners. Photo by CarbonNYC via Flickr

Here is the original post: 
Study: J&J’s Rivaroxaban Prevents Certain Clots, But Carries Higher Bleeding Risk