The US Food and Drug Administration requested Bayer AG, a company based in Leverkusen, Germany, to stop its sale of Trasylol an anti-bleeding drug. The drug is used during heart bypass surgery in order to prevent the patient from bleeding too much. Trasylol is known by another name, aprotinin. This drug obstructs the substance that melts blood clots so that blood loss would be avoided. When used in heart bypass surgery, the patient no longer requires blood transfusion.

This request to stop the sales is based on the study that Trasylol increases the chances of death by 50% compared with other drugs that are being tried. Bayer AG consented to halt its sales of the drug after discussion with FDA, German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medicine as well as Canadian Health Department.

According to Dr. John Jenkin, director of the agency’s Office of New drugs, FDA cannot pinpoint what type of patient can profit from the drug with lesser risk. So, further study needs to be made in order to determine to which type of patient the drug Trasylol would be useful or harmful. FDA and Bayer are helping each other out for this purpose.