tPA for Stroke

Authors Zivin and Simmons explain how the remarkable drug tPA came to be used for stroke survivors, the drug's infancy and childhood within the pharmaceutical giant Genentech, and its eventual marginalization due to a convergence of unfortunate political, fiscal, and medical circumstances.

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Each year, nearly 700,000 people in the United States will have a stroke. A drug known as tPA can drastically reduce the long-term disability associated with stroke if it is administered within the first three hours after the event occurs. Many of those who are lucky enough to be treated with tPA have made full recoveries--to the extent that one can hardly believe they suffered a "real" stroke. Others still do not receive the drug; many suffer permanent disabilities, and many die.

Authors Zivin and Simmons argue that most Americans have never heard of tPA. Why would such an effective pharmaceutical, one that has a remarkable rate of success with the third leading killer of Americans, be so disregarded? tPA for Stroke: The Story of a Controversial Drug explains the drug's beginnings within pharmaceutical giant Genentech, and its eventual marginalization due to a convergence of unfortunate political, fiscal, and medical circumstances. Readers will learn about an extraordinary treatment for acute stroke that they may then seek if a stroke occurs and anyone interested in the unique process of drug development, marketing, and promotion, told from an insider's perspective, will have an interest intPA for Stroke.