Avandia sales drop hurting GlaxoSmithKline
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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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.
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
Older patients who took Avandia had a higher risk of heart attacks, congestive heart failure and death than those on other diabetes pills, according to a study of nearly 160,000 Canadians.
Montgomery, AL: Joyce A. says she did not know that Avandia could cause so many health problems, at least she did not know until her doctor took her off Avandia and put her on another drug. Unfortunately, this happened after she was hospitalized two times with severe chest pains. Although she has started to recover since being taken off Avandia, she says she still experiences some pain.
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.
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.
Risks associated with Avandia have led the American Diabetes Association to call on doctors to use more caution when prescribing oral medications to treat people with type two diabetes.
The Avandia debacle has prompted a safety official from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to call for changes in the way diabetes medications are approved for use in the United States. The FDA official, who reviewed the original approval application for Avandia, told the Journal of Diabetes Care that the safety and effectiveness of experimental diabetes medications should be tested against existing drugs before they are approved. If such a testing protocol were to be adopted by the FDA, it would mark a significant departure from the way most medications are granted approval in the United States.
The government’s own preliminary evaluation of the diabetes pill Avandia confirms the heart risks reported in a study earlier this week and suggests that as many as 60,000 to 100,000 heart attacks might be linked to its use since it came on the market eight years ago, a leading member of Congress said Thursday.