Takeda diabetes drug slashes risk of second stroke

Patients with type 2 diabetes who have already suffered a first stroke have 47 percent less risk of having a second one if they take Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd's drug Actos, researchers said on Sunday.

The finding, presented at the World Congress of Cardiology, is the latest sign that the oral anti-diabetic medicine provides benefits beyond lowering blood sugar levels.

Dr Robert Wilcox of University Hospital, Nottingham, England, said adding Actos to standard care reduced the incidence of secondary stroke by nearly half to 5.6 percent from 10.2 percent in this group of patients.

There was, however, no effect of Actos on subsequent strokes in patients who had never experienced a stroke.

Actos, which is co-promoted by Eli Lilly and Co., belongs to a class of medicines called insulin sensitisers that also includes GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Avandia.

They work by making the body's cells more sensitive to insulin, thereby helping people with type 2, or adult-onset, diabetes to better use their own natural insulin.

The new research comes from analysis of a large clinical study called PROactive, which first reported results a year ago. That found Actos reduced the risk of heart attacks, strokes and death by 16 percent in all high-risk people with diabetes.

The initial study failed conclusively to show Actos prevented a broader range of adverse events, including the need for leg surgery, which had been its primary goal.

Dr Robert Spanheimer, medical director for diabetes at Takeda, said he believed doctors would be impressed by new data demonstrating such a large reduction in the risk of second stroke.

"This is amazing," he told Reuters. "When you classically think of stroke, you think of blood pressure and maybe cholesterol. To think that a diabetes medicine does this is truly remarkable."