Anticoagulant Drugs: Current and Novel

Abstract

The injectable anticoagulant unfractionated heparin (UFH), identified nearly a century ago by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical School, was first used in humans in 1937 and still enjoys widespread use today [1]. During The Great Depression, financially strapped farmers in the Canadian prairies and Northern Plains of the United States were forced to feed their livestock moldy sweet clover hay resulting in the death from internal bleeding of previously healthy animals [1]. The investigation into the cause of this devastating blow to the farmers’ livelihoods eventually culminated in the discovery of the world’s most widely used oral anticoagulant, warfarin [1]. Decades elapsed before the next advance in anticoagulation therapy, low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) was introduced into widespread use in the mid 1990s. Since then, several new anticoagulants including argatroban, bivalirudin, lepirudin, fondaparinux, dabigatran, and rivaroxaban have become available, with numerous others likely to be marketed in the near future.