Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

After two days of deliberation, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel voted Wednesday to keep the diabetes drug Avandia on the market despite studies that suggest the medication puts people at greater risk of heart attacks and strokes. The decision was hardly decisive. Among five possible recommendations, the option to withdraw Avandia from the market received the most votes, however a majority voted to keep it on the market in some form. Thus the drug will still be available.

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While an expert panel in the U.S. reviews evidence to decide whether to pull the popular diabetes drug Avandia off the market due to an increased risk of cardiovascular events, BusinessWeek reports that the drug’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has agreed to pay about $460 million to settle lawsuits alleging the company hid evidence that Avandia increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes. GSK faces more than 13,000 lawsuits and has agreed to settle about 10,000 of them. Avandia was to face its first trial in federal court in October. BusinessWeek reports that the FDA review helped prompt the company’s decision to settle the suits.

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The fate of the diabetes drug Avandia will likely be decided soon by an expert panel that has spent the past two days reviewing evidence that linked the drug to serious cardiovascular events and whether its developer and manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), influenced the results of a study asserting the safety of Avandia.

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