Running time: 20 minutes

The anticoagulant dabigatran, marketed in the U.S. as Pradaxa, has always had the problem that, although it’s more convenient to use, there’s no sure way to stop its effect if the patient has a major bleed.

Now, a monoclonal antibody fragment called idarucizumab (pronounced i-DARE-you-scis-ooh-mab) shows promise as a reversal agent. In an interim analysis of the first 90 of a planned 300 patients, the fragment was quite effective in stopping bleeds.

The analysis was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and we talk with the paper’s first author, Charles V. Pollack, Jr.

Link to NEJM article (free)