Boehringer Ingelheim has inched closer to a Pradaxa antidote. The company announced Wednesday that it is set to launch its first-ever test among patients. The blood drug antidote, called idarucizumab, has been tested in healthy patients, and this latest test will involve emergency rooms in 35 countries.
Lack of an antidote is a concern with oral anti-coagulants, which include BI’s Pradaxa as well as the BMS/Pfizer treatment Eliquis and Janssen’s Xarelto. There is one exception: standby warfarin which, as MedPage’s editor-in-chief noted in an April piece, is reversible.
