A drug that cut the rate of heart attacks and deaths in patients with a certain genetic makeup could pave the way for a new era of personalized medications for the treatment of heart disease.

Scientists from the Montreal Heart Institute gave either the medication dalcetrapib or a placebo to 5,749 patients. Dalcetrapib is a CETP inhibitor, which is a drug that is intended to reduce the risk of heart disease by improving blood lipid levels.

In the study, researchers found that patients with a variant for a gene called ADCY9 experienced a 39 percent reduction in cardiovascular events such as heart attacks, strokes, unstable angina, or cardiac death when they were given the drug.

Supporting evidence was also obtained from a second study, which showed that patients with the favorable genetic profile also benefited from a reduction in the thickness of their carotid artery walls with dalcetrapib.

The carotid arteries are the vessels in the neck that carry blood from the heart to the brain, and their clogging increases stroke risk.

Targeted drugs are increasingly used to treat cancer, and research like this could usher in a new generation of more effective cardiac drugs.