Can Wyeth Fool American Women Twice?

http://counterpunch.com/rosenberg06202008.html


Hormone Drugs, Cancer and Profits


Can Wyeth win back the 40 million Premarin and Prempro users it's lost since 2002--along with $1 billion a year in profits--with a new menopause drug?

Or will the once-bitten women who have filed more than 5,000 law suits claiming the hormones gave them cancer feel fooled twice?

Pristiq, a serotonin/norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI), is a metabolite of Wyeth's antidepressant Effexor XR--which netted $3.7 billion in 2006--and an unabashed patent extender since Effexor XR goes off patent in 2010.

In February Pristiq was approved by the FDA for the treatment of adults with major depressive disorder but its launch as the first non-hormonal treatment for menopausal symptoms is what Wyeth hopes will fill the Premarin/Prempro/Effexor black hole to the tune of $2 billion a year.

Unfortunately, instead of a green light to market Pristiq for menopause last July, the FDA--also once bitten after Vioxx, Avandia and Vytroin--said to Wyeth not so fast.

Why did two women in the study group taking Pristiq have heart attacks and three need procedures to repair clogged arteries compared with none taking placebo it wanted to know? How can Wyeth assure long term safety when 604 of the 2,158 test subjects took Pristiq for only six months and 318 for a year or more? And what about serious liver complications seen in the studies?

Nor do drug industry insiders on the chatroom cafepharma sound like they're scooping up Wyeth stock.
-snip-
-----------------------------