Bayer withdraws Trasylol from U.S. market

WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp. is removing its entire stock of the drug Trasylol from the U.S. market.

Last November Bayer agreed to an FDA-requested marketing suspension of Trasylol, a drug used to control bleeding during heart surgery. At that time, preliminary results from a Canadian study suggested the drug produced an increased risk of death compared with two similar drugs.

Now Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc. has notified the FDA it will remove all remaining Trasylol stock, most of which it said is in warehouses and hospitals' or physicians' stock, from the U.S. market.

Although the FDA said, while it hasn't received full study data from the Canadian researchers at the Ottawa Health Research Institute, it supports Bayer's decision.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International