Meldonium company hits back Sharapova's claims

Moscow: The Latvian company that manufactures meldonium says the normal course of treatment for the drug is four to six weeks — not the 10 years that Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova says she used the substance.

The five-time Grand Slam champion said on Monday she failed a doping test at the Australian Open in January for meldonium, which became a banned substance under the World Anti-Doping Agency code this year.

The former No.1 said she had taken meldonium, a heart medicine which improves blood flow and is little-known in the US, for a decade following various health problems including regular sicknesses, early signs of diabetes and “irregular” results from echocardiography exams.

Latvian company Grindeks, which manufactures meldonium, said that four to six weeks was a common course. “Depending on the patient’s health condition, treatment course of meldonium preparations may vary from four to six weeks. Treatment course can be repeated twice or thrice a year,” the company said in an emailed statement. “Only physicians can follow and evaluate patient’s health condition and state whether the patient should use meldonium for a longer period of time.”

While Grindeks has previously stated that the drug can provide an “improvement of work capacity of healthy people at physical and mental overloads and during rehabilitation period,” it said that it believed the substance would not enhance athletes’ performance in competition and might even do the opposite.