Dr. Deepak L. Bhatt discusses New FDA Approved Medication to Reduce Cardiovascular Health Risks

USA - English

• USA - English

NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The FDA just approved a medication that can reduce the persistent cardiovascular risk that millions of patients face. Cardiovascular disease events, including heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death, occur in the United States every 14 seconds and are economically, physically and emotionally costly. Recently, Dr. Deepak L. Bhatt teamed with YourUpdateTV to discuss this medication.

A video accompanying this announcement is available at: https://youtu.be/wzlFv28Ystg

The medication, VASCEPA® (icosapent ethyl) from Amarin, is the first-and-only FDA-approved therapy for reducing CVD risk for indicated high-risk patients. For the first time, physicians, patients and payers have an FDA-approved option beyond cholesterol lowering that has been demonstrated to significantly reduce major adverse cardiovascular events when used on top of a statin.

"In the REDUCE-IT trial, we found that icosapent ethyl significantly reduced the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and deaths from cardiovascular causes," Dr. Bhatt said. "This is the biggest development in cardiovascular prevention since the introduction of statins nearly three decades ago. Many patients stand to benefit from this historic advance in care."

According to an article in Trends in Cardiovascular Medicine, the findings which led to this approval are one of the most important advances in preventive cardiology in the past decade. The American Heart Association listed this approval as one of the 2019 Top Heart Disease and Stroke Research Advances, placing it among studies the selection committee called "momentous for our patients." Additionally, independent third-party analyses have found VASCEPA to be cost-effective, with insured patients accessing the medication for as low as $3 per month.

For more information, visit VASCEPA.com

About Dr. Deepak L. Bhatt
Dr. Deepak L. Bhatt is the executive director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women's Hospital, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and editor-in-chief of the Harvard Heart Letter. He was also the lead investigator of the REDUCE-IT study which served as the basis for the new FDA approval for VASCEPA. Dr. Bhatt specializes in cardiovascular medicine and interventional cardiology. The author of over 1,000 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Bhatt is listed as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher. He is the editor of Cardiovascular Intervention: A Companion to Braunwald's Heart Disease. Three projects he helped lead were listed in the 2014 American Heart Association/American Stroke Association top ten advances in heart disease and stroke research. He is a former trustee of the American College of Cardiology.

About YourUpdateTV:
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SOURCE Dr. Deepak L. Bhatt