Single-Dose 'Polypill' Found to Save Lives, Prevent Heart Attacks in Major New Trial

A combination of three drugs could help patients who have a history of heart attacks remain well, new research suggests. those given standard care. The results could open the way for the polypill to be an increasingly common treatment for heart disease going forward.

The idea of the polypill is in use for more than two decades. Certain medical conditions require the use of several medications, which is a time-consuming process and a burden on patients. Therefore, by taking these separate medicines and combining them into one pill, according to the theory, you’ll make it easier for patients to follow the treatment they are prescribed. There are already established treatment options for certain conditions like HIV or AIDS, that are administered as a mix of medications. The original motivation behind the polypill was to provide an approach to enhance the treatment for cardiovascular diseases. This strategy appears to have passed the most rigorous test to date with flying colors.

In the year 2015 the “Secondary prevention of CardiovascUlar disease in the Elderly”–or SECURE trial began. The purpose was to determine the fixed dosage combination of three generic medications already recognized to improve heart disease outcomes such as aspirin, which is a commonly used statin referred to as atorvastatin along with the ACE inhibitor Ramipril. The drug combination is manufactured by Ferrer, the pharmaceutical company. Ferrer and is regulated in the EU as well as in others as Trinomia.

More than 2,500 patients who suffered from heart attack older than 65 were part of the study that was financed through the EU and carried out across seven European countries. Patients were assigned to receive either Trinomia treatment or the standard treatment. that needed urgent treatment.

In the end, 12.7% of patients in the control group had at some of these outcomes in comparison to 9.5 percent of patients in the group taking the polypill which equates to 24% less risk. In the case of deaths specifically, those who were taking the polypill had a 33% lower chance die than patients in the control group. Additionally, the study found that patients taking the polypill had a higher likelihood to continue following the prescribed dosage exactly according to the plan. The findings of the study were published on Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

It is believed that the SECURE test is the only one trial of its kind to evaluate the effectiveness for heart attack patients. Numerous experts in the area were waiting to see the findings of the study to be revealed in the form of gold-standard data which could result in the greater acceptance of a revolutionary medical treatment method. Based on these findings it’s likely that more countries will opt to allow Trinomia. (Notably that it’s not the case that the U.S. has not approved Trinomia even though it has granted approval to various other medications.) This means that the drug could one day become the new standard of treatment for patients susceptible to heart issues in the future.

Through reducing the complexity of treatment and increasing compliance, this method could lower the risk of recurrent cardiovascular diseases and deaths on a global scale,” said senior study author Valentin Fuster, who is the chief physician in charge of Mount Sinai Hospital located in New York as well as the general director of the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research in a press release issued from Mount Sinai.