WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, at the 2012 American College of Cardiology Summit, Alere Inc. (NYSE: ALR) was pleased to announce the results from the world’s largest study of warfarin (Coumadin®) patient self-testers, performed by anticoagulation expert, Jack Ansell, MD, which showed that self-testing led to excellent therapy control. In the United States, among the general adult population, stroke is the leading cause of disability and the third leading cause of death. Since the late 1980s, warfarin has been the drug of choice for preventing ischemic strokes caused by blood clots, and more than 3 million patients currently take the blood thinner. While warfarin is one of the most effective medications prescribed today, the drug can have dangerous side effects if managed improperly—the most common of which is bleeding—and these side effects have proven to be barriers to its more widespread use.
