ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, May 5, 1996                    TAG: 9605070019
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON

FDA PANEL APPROVES CLOT-BUSTER

A federal scientific panel unanimously recommended Friday that the government approve a new clot-buster to treat heart attack victims.

Drugs like the best-selling tPA that dissolve blockages in clogged arteries are now standard therapy for heart attacks, but companies are racing to create a second generation of the medicines that are more easily administered and work even better.

The Food and Drug Administration's advisers concluded Friday that reteplase, made by Boehringer Mannheim Therapeutics, medically is essentially equivalent to existing clot-busters, said the FDA's Dr. Karen Weiss.

But reteplase is different from existing clot-busters because it is given in two intravenous shots, instead of being infused into the patient over several hours.

The FDA is not bound by advisory panel decisions but usually follows them.

- Associated Press

LENGTH: Short :   28 lines