Move to Get Benicar Off Market; Nexterone Recall; Squirrel Hibernation Stroke Tx?

— Recent developments of interest in cardiovascular medicine

MedicalToday

Watchdog group Public Citizen to get antihypertensive olmesartan medoxomil (Benicar HCT) and generics off the market because of the risk of sprue-like enteropathy, a severe and even life-threatening gastrointestinal side effect.

The FDA that the gout drug febuxostat (Uloric) was associated with an elevated risk of cardiac death compared with another such drug in preliminary results from a postmarketing safety study. has more here.

The FDA expanded the indication for the . In addition to treating femoropopliteal occlusive disease, the device can now be used for dialysis access in arteriovenous fistula stenosis. (Fierce Biotech)

One lot of the anti-arrhythmic drug for the presence of particulate matter. (FDA MedWatch)

could point the way to a new stroke treatment, reported researchers who found a potential drug to protect the brain from ischemia. (NIH)

In a mouse model study, researchers associated with the inherited connective tissue disorder Marfan syndrome using antihypertensive losartan (Cozaar) and the novel cancer drug refametinib. (Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight)

Researchers came up with a tool to better predict heart attack and cardiac arrest risk in . (Circulation)

India's National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority is revisiting the that manufacturers have protested as making them sell high-end stents at a loss. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Aramark through a collaboration with the American Heart Association for the two billion meals it serves each year at colleges and universities, hospital cafes, and workplace locations, the AHA announced.

The AHA is also collaborating with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to simulate drug-protein interactions with its supercomputers to , the AHA announced.