Dr. Reddy’s, the Indian pharma giant has decided to join hands with the University of Auckland, //New Zealand to begin Global trials of a new fixed dose combination or “polypills” to prevent strokes and heart attacks.

The polypill will combine four drugs- aspirin, statin(to reduce cholesterol) and two drugs to prevent hypertension. The trial will check the reliability of the pill when it comes to safety and its effectiveness when consumed as one pill.

Investments of Dr. Reddy’s in the trial would come up to $7.5 million, and The Health Research Council, New Zealand has invested U.S. $241,055.

Dr. Reddy’s has initiated the trial six months ago, Satish Reddy, COO and managing director of Dr. Reddy’s said, “Since all medicines in the polypill are already prescribed to heart attack patients, we don’t anticipate any problem with polypill trial.”

Anyway, the plan of having a global trial will assess the success of using the polypill in different populations. The trial will begin by the second quarter of 2007, and would involve 600 people from five continents.

Apart from people from India and New Zealand, the other countries involved in the global trial would be South Africa, China, Australia, Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States.

It took three years for the drug company to formulate this pill. Mr.Reddy’s claims this pill to be “single most important initiative of the decade” by his firm. He also said, “We should be able to introduce the drug for secondary indication [prescriptions to stroke/heart attack patients] by mid-2007.”

Affordability of the polypill

The cost of this pill is taken to prime importance since it is to be used in developing countries. Dr.Reddy’s assured, “Our intention is to see that one month’s medication costs less than Rs. 100 [U.S. $2.20]. The combination is not going to bring us big money, but it will help the patients as they get all four pills co
'"/>




Page: 1 2
Related medicine news :

1. Combined scan gives exact cancer diagnosis
2. A Protein-Rich Diet Combined With Exercise Found To Be More Effective In Weight Loss
3. Combined modality approach for effective treatment and enhanced survival in bile duct cancer
4. Vision Loss in Elderly Caused By Combined Effect of Genes and Bacterium
5. Exercise Combined with Dialysis Yields Better Results
6. Combined Anti-Fever Drug Therapy Proves Unsafe for Childhood Fever
7. A Combined Research for Producing Chlamydia Vaccine Begins
8. Combined Ingredients may Cut Cholesterol Levels
9. Combined Imaging Approach may Provide Better Identification of Difficult-to-diagnose Brain Clots
10. Combined Imaging Approach may Be Effective in Diagnosing Some Brain Clots
11. One in Three Heart Attack Patients Have No Chest Pains