At the European Cardiology Congress in Paris this week, the news is that cardiovascular medicine is still producing tonnes of new research and there are therapeutic advances in all areas from atrial fibrillation and stroke to heart failure and heart attacks. For example, there are 3 new oral anticoagulants (blood-thinning drugs) which offer true alternatives to warfarin for the first time in 50 years. All these drugs have shown superiority in recent trials presented at this meeting- rivaroxaban in ROCKET-AF, apixaban in ARISTOTLE and dabigatran in the RE-LY trial.

Salim Yusuf, arguably one of the most prolific clinical triallists and lead investigator in two of those trials, also presented the results of a different type of study, published in the Lancet this week. The PURE study included over 150000 patients with known coronary heart disease from 17 countries and showed that even in high-income countries. The drug treatments that such patients should be taking are well-established and available very cheaply-aspirin, beta-blockers, ACE-inhibitors and statins. Depressingly, the proportion of patients globally taking these drugs is less than 50% even in rich countries. In Africa, 80% of eligible patients were taking no drugs at all. As Salim Yusuf said, treatment gaps like this in the HIV/AIDS epidemic led to human rights arguments for broadening of antiretroviral treatment and mobilisation of the global health community and governments.

The inequality was also visible at concurrent “Meet the Triallists” sessions. Delegates clamoured to get to the trial update for the ARISTOTLE trial of the novel anticoagulant, apixaban, but I was one of only 20-30 people who heard Salim Yusuf talk about the PURE trial. Global health cardiology is just not sexy enough yet, even in the wake of the UN high-level meeting in September.

You could argue what is the point of all these fancy new drugs if we are failing to get simple, cheap, proven therapies to the people who need them most, even in rich countries. The tsunami of cardiovascular disease hitting all countries is not going to be touched by all the new drugs currently being trialled. We have to get better at translation. More research funders and senior researchers need to lead new trials with global health impact if we are to have any chance of focusing on problems worth researching.