Category Archives: Big Pharma

Seven diseases Big Pharma hopes you get in 2012

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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Until recently, drug companies selling blockbuster drugs were the darlings of stock market investors. But of course, not all diseases are blockbusters, warns Martha Rosenberg in a recent AlterNet essay. Supply-driven marketing, also known as “Have Drug – Need Disease and Patients” - not only turns us into pill-popping hypochondriacs, she claims, but it distracts from Big Pharma’s drought of real drugs for real problems.

She reminds us that, in order to be considered a true blockbuster disease, a condition must:

  • really exist but have huge diagnostic “wiggle room” and no clear-cut tests
  • be potentially serious with “silent symptoms” said to “only get worse” if untreated
  • be “under-recognized,” “under-reported” with “barriers” to treatment
  • explain hitherto vague health problems that a patient has had
  • have a catchy name — ED, ADHD, RLS, Low T or IBS — and instant medical identity
  • need an expensive new drug that has no generic equivalent

Martha suggests the following conditions that just might turn into potential blockbuster diseases – the ones that Big Pharma hopes you get this year:   Continue reading →

The New Therapeutics: 10 Commandments

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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I like how the veteran health journalist Andrew Holtz once explained the interesting concept of surrogate or intermediate endpoints for us dull-witted patients. He cites, for example, studies on patients with diabetes that included aggressive control of blood sugar, high blood pressure and cholesterol in people considered to be at very high risk for heart attacks.  But oddly enough, this research showed that:

  • strict management of blood sugar did not reduce heart attack deaths
  • reduction in high blood pressure levels did not reduce heart attack deaths
  • controlling high LDL cholesterol numbers with the use of statin drugs did not reduce heart attack deaths

Holtz explains that lab results may not actually be accurate predictors of mortality – they are merely intermediate or surrogate endpoints along the way.

And just because a drug improves lab test results doesn’t mean it saves lives – despite the efforts of Big Pharma to convince drug prescribers otherwise.  Continue reading →

Big Pharma, are you ready for your close-up?

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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It’s movie awards season, and that reminds us that filmmakers are at work on new projects that might snag an award or two next year. And ever since the film Love and Other Drugs turned Jake Gyllenhaal into a Viagra sales rep, and director Steven Soderbergh‘s film Contagion made a vaccine researcher into a hero, Big Pharma’s a hot theme in the movie biz.

For example, a recent Reuters report says that Kathleen Sharp‘s book Blood Feud has just been optioned by the film production company, New Regency. This book is the true story of Mark Duxbury, a Johnson & Johnson drug rep-turned-corporate whistleblower. Duxbury repped for J&J’s biotech division Ortho, and was one of its top salespeople for its anemia drug Procrit – until he was fired, allegedly for warning that the drug could actually be harmful.

Here’s why this real-life script has suspense thriller written all over it.  Continue reading →

FDA panel that approved Yaz and Yasmin had ties with industry

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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Dr. Sidney Wolfe is the founder and Director of Health Research at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, and is also the author of the  consumer guide called “Worst Pills/Best Pills”.  Among the drugs mentioned in this guide under the “worst” section are birth control pills containing the synthetic hormone called drospirenone, listed with cautionary warnings “due to the increased risks of blood clots, heart attack, stroke, sudden cardiac death, or gallbladder injuries”.  An article posted on the Worst Pills website revealed that studies funded by the drug industry found lower risks of blood clots than did studies that were publicly funded.

There are, in fact, over 10,000 individual lawsuits pending over injuries and deaths related to drospirenone/ethinyl estradiol tablets. You may know them better as Yaz (or Yasmin in Canada), as well as Ocella (generic Yasmin). New safety warnings published last April in the British Medical Journal now suggests a two to five-fold increased risk of thromboembolic or blood clot-related injuries in women taking birth control medications that contain drospirenone, which generally provide no greater benefits than those seen with older, safer birth control pill formulations without drospirenone.   Continue reading →