Urgent Warning Over AstraZeneca Heart Drug Taken by Millions of Patients

The warning here relates to the anti-clotting drug ticagrelor (Brilinta) and comes following a major investigation by The BMJ. Initially approved for use in Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) in 2011, this AstraZeneca drug was initially thought to significantly reduce deaths after a heart attack. However, new scrutiny has cast serious doubt on its effectiveness, with experts now saying that key clinical trials – central to the drug’s approval in both the UK and the United States – may have contained significant misreporting of results. In particular, researchers argue that the main outcome measures used to prove the drug’s effectiveness were inaccurately presented in a leading medical journal.

The BMJ investigation found that around 25 percent of platelet readings – used to assess how well ticagrelor prevents blood clots – were missing from the trial data submitted to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Some of the omitted readings showed increased platelet aggregation, the very effect the drug is supposed to prevent. These discrepancies raise concerns that the trial data may have painted a misleading picture of the drug’s safety and effectiveness.

The findings have raised alarm, as ticagrelor is prescribed around 45,000 times a month in the UK alone, often for up to four years after a heart attack. Health authorities may now face pressure to re-examine the drug’s continued approval amid growing calls for greater transparency in clinical trial reporting.

To read how AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine was withdrawn worldwide in 2024 after it was discovered to cause deadly blood clots, see this article on our website.