Novartis' Neoral performs well in study

Swiss drug major Novartis says that the results of a large head-to-head study has shown that Neoral (cyclosporine), an immunosuppressant, has equivalent efficacy to tacrolimus in preventing organ rejection in kidney transplant patients. Data from the study also revealed that transplant patients treated with Neoral had a significantly-lower incidence of new onset diabetes than those who received tacrolimus. The company went on to say that Neoral has the potential to address one of the major cardiovascular risk factors associated with function graft1 type tissue transplantation.