STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sanofi-Aventis's recently launched heart rhythm drug Multaq should be considered as a treatment option for patients with atrial fibrillation, a common arrhythmia, according to new medical guidelines.
Multaq, or dronedarone, was designed as a improvement on the older drug amiodarone. It has a safer profile than the older medicine but has suffered from slow sales in the United States and Europe because studies suggest it is less effective.
The latest version of the European Society of Cardiology's (ESC) guidelines on atrial fibrillation now includes Multaq, on the basis that it makes sense to choose a treatment that is safer, even though it may be less effective.
"In view of the better safety and potential outcome benefit, dronedarone may be preferable as the first antiarrhythmic option," the guidelines, which were released at the ESC annual congress on Sunday, said.
The drug is not recommended, however, for patients with serious heart failure.
Multaq was approved in the United States in July 2009 and won approval from European medicines regulators last September. It is viewed as a key growth driver for Sanofi to see it through the years when patents expire on blockbusters like cancer treatment Taxotere and blood thinner Plavix.
The medicine is currently forecast to sell $1.5 billion a year by 2014, according to consensus analyst forecasts compiled Thomson Reuters.
Atrial fibrillation is an abnormal heart rhythm in which the upper chambers of the heart beat in an uncoordinated manner. which can cause palpitations, shortness of breath and fatigue and raise the risk of more serious heart problems.
More and more people are suffering from the disease due to an increasingly aging population.
(Reporting by Ben Hirschler)
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