Blood Works.

THERAPEUTICS; HEART diseases; THERAPEUTICS research; HEART failure treatment; INFLAMMATION prevention; CLINICAL drug trials; ANTI-inflammatory agents; VASOGEN Inc.; MEDICAL research; CLINICAL trials

The article looks at a therapy using patients' own blood to reverse a deadly component of heart disease. For more than a decade medical researchers have been making huge strides in proving the link between inflammation and heart disease. Vasogen, a publicly traded biotechnology in Mississauga, Ontario, has spent $150 million developing a novel therapy using a modified sample of a patient's own blood to trick the immune system into fighting cardiac inflammation. Called Celacade, the treatment has already been approved for use in Europe and is currently in late-stage trials in the United States. Vasogen expects to complete a 500-patient trial for peripheral arterial disease and wrap up a trial of 2,000 chronic heart failure patients. In midstage trials 73 chronic heart failure patients, their bodies wasting away from the disease, were given either Celacade or saline placebo for six months, along with their regular drug regime of blood pressure reducers and diuretics. The Celacade group had one patient death compared with seven in the placebo group. Celacade had similarly positive results in a midstage trial with patients with peripheral arterial disease.