Highlights of ESC include strong data on AstraZeneca's Brilinta and Servier's Procoralan; ESC guideline for atrial fibrillation

The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) meeting, taking place in Stockholm, Sweden, saw presentation on: Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca's antiplatelet drug candidate Brilinta (ticagrelor); Servier's Procoralan; and the release of guidelines for the treatment of atrial fibrillation noting use of Sanofi-Aventis' Multaq (dronedarone).

A new genetic substudy of PLATO (A Study of PLATelet Inhibition and Patient Outcomes) showed that the effects on a combined primary endpoint of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke seen in Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS) patients who received AstraZeneca's (LSE: AZN) investigational oral antiplatelet treatment, ticagrelor were maintained, whether or not they had the genetic variability that has been previously shown to affect a patient's response to clopidogrel. The substudy is the first to look at both efficacy and bleeding endpoints of ACS patients treated with ticagrelor who carry variations in the CYP2C19 and ABCB1 genes. The data were simultaneously published in The Lancet yesterday.

CYP2C19 and ABCB1