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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Consumer watchdog group Public Citizen released a petition on Thursday calling for an immediate ban on GlaxoSmithKline’s diabetes drug Avandia. In a petition addressed to Commissioner Dr. Von Eschenbach of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Public Citizen urged the ban based on trial data revealing the drug’s “multiple, serious risks.”

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A UK newspaper reported yesterday that drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) – the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world – will cut 150 or more scientists and support staff positions.

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Researchers believe that the diabetes drug Avandia may cause bone loss and long-term use may speed up osteoporosis. The thinning of the bones is dangerous and could lead to fatal fractures. The study published in the December 2nd issue of Nature Medicine suggests that usage of rosiglitazone in the treatment of type II diabetes may cause osteoporosis.

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GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia is once again making the headlines after it was revealed that the peer reviewer looking at the now-notorious meta-analysis on the diabetes drug’s safety profile leaked a confidential copy of the article to the firm before it was published in the New England Journal of Medicine

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The consequences of deadly Avandia side-effects are now being seen in the general population, a new study has found. Previously, evidence that Avandia placed patients at an increased risk of heart attacks had only been seen in clinical trials. But now, Canadian researchers have found that patients taking the controversial diabetes drug who are not enrolled in clinical trials are showing increased evidence of heart attacks and other cardiac problems.

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Canadian researchers furnished the strongest evidence to date linking the popular diabetes drug Avandia to an increased risk of heart attack in a scientific study released yesterday.

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Avandia, a drug used by millions of diabetes patients, may contribute to bone loss, according to a new study conducted in mice.

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Two U.S. pharmacy benefit managers said on Thursday they had dropped GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s (GSK.L: Quote, Profile, Research) diabetes drug Avandia from their national formularies due to safety concerns.

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