DISPENSARY CORNER 4 Nov 15
December 4, 2015
They were originally called NOACs
- for Novel Anticoagulants, the
class of drugs such as dabigatran,
rivaroxaban and apixaban which
provide an alternative blood
thinner to warfarin.
In a presentation in Sydney
earlier this week about the
medications, cardiologist Dr Harry
Gibbs explained the evolution of
the name of the drug class.
About ten years after they
were first developed it was
thought they were no longer
“novel” so the terminology was
changed to DOACs, for Direct Oral
AntiCoagulants.
“That caught on a bit, but then
another name, TSOACs, for Target
Specific Oral AntiCoagulants was
tried,” Gibbs said, creating some
confusion.
Finally someone came up with
the idea of calling them Non-
Vitamin K Oral AntiCoagulants - or
NOACs for short.
“If you weren’t around for
the DOAC and the TSOAC era
you haven’t missed much - you
can just go back to calling them
NOACs,” Gibbs concluded.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 04 Dec 15To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 04 Dec 15