Pradaxa was recalled from the market after reports of excessive gastrointestinal bleeding were made by those who were prescribed the medicine. Boehringer Ingelheim confirmed that it will not go ahead with marketing the blood thinning drug in New Zealand till doctors have been given enough information on the dosage.

The drug was approved in 2008 for patients who had to undergo major surgery. The drug was fully funded without restriction from Pharmac to prevent strokes in patients with rhythm disorder even though it is known that bleeding is a side effect of this type of drug.

Pradaxa is another anti blood clotting pill that is said to replace an established yet dangerous Warfin. The need to update doctors on the use of this drug was prompted by cases of severe bleeding that were reported after the drug was launched in some European countries.

Boehringer, Gremany’s second largest drug producer, agrees with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to revise the information given to doctors before the company goes all out to market its new drug.

According to instructions for prescribing the drug, doctors must make sure that patients older than 75 years have their kidneys checked once a year or for as long as they are on the treatment. This should be done because the kidneys filter the active ingredient and if the kidneys fail to function there could be overdosing of the drug and this could lead to the risk of internal bleeding.

Therefore, doctors have been advised not to prescribe this medicine to patients with kidney problems. It was important for doctors to ensure that conditions like dehydration were investigated while a patient was on Pradaxa.

Market experts believe that the total annual market for such oral drugs is as much as $ 20 billion.