A Reuters story that appeared today in The New York Times reports the failure, in a late-stage clinical trial, of an experimental stroke treatment derived from vampire bat saliva. The drug, desmoteplase, showed promise in smaller, earlier trials. But it failed to outperform a placebo treatment in the recent trial, which involved 186 patients.
The disappointing outcome of the trial serves as a reminder that modern medicine has few drugs with which to treat stroke, the third-leading killer in the United States. While doctors have long used various anti-clotting drugs to prevent recurrent stroke, just one FDA-approved medication -- tissue plasmogen activator, or t-PA -- can aid recovery. And t-PA, which busts clots, is only approved for use within three hours of the beginning of a stroke.
Desmoteplase, by contrast, was being developed with a longer treatment window in mind. Had the recent trial proved it more effective than a placebo, it might have been used as much as nine hours after stroke onset.
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