Takeda's Actos reduces risk of recurrent stroke

Japanese drug major Takeda says that Actos (pioglitazone HCl), its oral insulin sensitizer medication, significantly reduced the risk of recurrent stroke in high-risk patients with type 2 diabetes in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled outcome study of 5,238 patients.

The new analyses from the landmark PROactive Study, which were presented at a late-breaking session of the World Congress of Cardiology in Barcelona, Spain, show that the drug reduced the incidence of recurrent stroke 47% (p=0.008) while the combined risk of death, myocardial infarction or stroke fell 28% (p<0.05). There was no effect of Actos on subsequent strokes in patients who had never experienced a stroke, Takeda noted.

According to Robert Wilcox, professor in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Queen's Medical Centre, University Hospital, Nottingham, UK, "these results are very encouraging news for people with type 2 diabetes because they demonstrated that Actos reduced the incidence of strokes in patients who had already experienced a stroke from 10.2% down to 5.6%, translating to a risk reduction of almost 50%."