OFT alleges that GSK breached competition law to delay rivals' generic copies of Seroxat

The OFT alleges that GSK breached competition law to delay rivals' generic copies of Seroxat, one of its most profitable drugs. See BBC News report. "GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has been accused of market "abuse" by the consumer watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). The OFT alleges that the pharmaceutical giant paid rivals to delay the release their own versions of GSK's Seroxat treatment. Alpharma, Generics UK and Norton Healthcare all received money not to enter the market with their copies of Seroxat, it said."

 

We must not be surprised at GlaxoSmithKline being accused of nefarious activities. You can read here of several more breaches of the Law by GSK with regard to the antidepressant, Seroxat, and other pharmaceutical junk that GSK manufactures. Some further examples of its criminality can be found on this page.

GSK whistleblowers handsomely rewarded for their evidence which helped in the US prosecution of Glaxo for drug mispromotion and fraud

The Telegraph reports that four former GlaxoSmithKline employees will share up to £159 million for their part in the successful prosecution of the drug company. Unfortunately Glaxo's crimes and misdemeanours are regarded with amazing leniency in Britain, as evidenced by the award of a knighthood earlier this year to Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline. Drug company profits trump patient safety and corporate ethics.

Do you really think that GSK, the drug company, is interested in helping people to be healthy?

Do you really think that drug companies are interested in helping you to be healthy? - Surely not? - Are you not aware that they repeatedly appear in both the civil and the criminal courts as defendants in cases of fraud, bribery, corruption and the like? - That their only real interest is in profits and their only motivation is greed? - Check it out:

 

See last Monday's article on the BBC News Website, in which we read that "GlaxoSmithKline is to pay $3bn (£1.9bn) in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history. The drug giant is to plead guilty to promoting two drugs for unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about a diabetes drug to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The settlement will cover criminal fines as well as civil settlements with the federal and state governments.
The case concerns 10 drugs, including Paxil, Wellbutrin, Avandia and Advair."

Did you know that the many well-honed skills of GSK include bribing doctors to prescribe antidepressant drugs off-label for children, knowing that these drugs can and do result in grave harm to children, including death? And did you know that Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours List? - Beggars belief, doesn't it? - It's not as if the fraudulent practices of this firm have only come to light recently. They have been reported and in the public domain for years. Why was the head of this huge criminal business recommended for a knighthood?

I've mentioned Andrew Witty previously in one of my blogposts. - See HERE. Would you feel safe taking drugs made and marketed by this company? -  Well I wouldn't.

Dangerous practices and details of gross negligence at the Cidra pharmaceutical plant, run by one of GlaxoSmithKline's subsidiaries.

Dangerous practices and details of gross negligence at the Cidra pharmaceutical plant, run by one of GlaxoSmithKline's subsidiaries. - Read Dr Mercola's article about this. Do you agree with me that the top people of drug companies that are guilty of such negligence should personally have to be answerable to criminal charges in court and receive severe punishments, like prison sentences, in order to discourage repetition of the offences? - What if you or your loved ones are the next patients to suffer from Big Pharma's dangerous products?
If you agree with me on this, then draw these scandalous details to the notice of your friends, family and colleagues.

Truthman speaks out against GlaxoSmithKline

Truthman speaks out here against nefarious practices by GlaxoSmithKline, the drug company. He writes about the illegal marketing of depression drug Wellbutrin as a weight-loss aid, and the tragedies caused by SSRI anti-depressants, including Prozac, Seroxat, Citalopram and Zyprexa, because of their grave side-effects. If you ever think of taking any of this pharmaceutical junk yourself, I urge you to ponder Truthman's words and the words of Dr David Healy, an expert on SSRI drugs, and think again. Improving your nutrition is far more likely to lessen depression than any pharmaceutical mind-altering drugs. Can you really trust GSK or other drug companies with the safety of your brain/mind when you read of their iniquitous behaviour? - Your brain is not infinitely elastic. Guard it from assault by psychotropic drugs.

GSK pays $750 million in criminal fines and civil penalties to settle adulterated drug allegations

Read report.

Watch out, South Africa! - GSK has you in its sights!

In this Guardian report, we read: "The rainbow nation is "eating itself slowly to death", according to the drug and healthcare company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which says 61% of South Africans are overweight, obese or morbidly obese."

Let's see now: that'll be GlaxoSmithKline, Britain's biggest pharmaceutical company, whose top drug product is the asthma steroid medication Advair, which is well-known for causing weight gain...

Another of GSK's drugs is epilepsy treatment Lamictal, which causes weight gain.

And another is antidepressant Paxil, which also causes weight gain.

I think we can see a common side-effect of these GSK drugs here, can't we? - Weight gain.

You'll probably be aware of the Avandia scandal, revivified in recent weeks. Among the host of harmful side-effects of this very dangerous diabetes drug is weight gain/fluid retention.

So GSK's products are themselves directly causing weight gain - i.e. that's pharmaceuticals that are causing weight gain, yet the pharmaceutical company itself blames overeating for the obesity of South Africa's citizens and doesn't mention drug-induced weight gain at all.

If you have gained excess weight from taking prescription drugs, you can lose some of that excess weight by avoiding salt and salty food. This is the safe, sure, fast way to lose excess weight. - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website here and how to lose excess weight safely and vulnerable groups.

Pharmaceutical drugs are a major cause of obesity - especially of morbid obesity - and all the Pandora's box of ill-health and distress that accompanies obesity. I fear from this report that Glaxo may be setting off on a campaign of further damage to South Africa's unfortunate citizens by conning them into taking weight loss drugs - i.e. further harmful pharmaceutical junk.

Criticism mounts on GSK re Avandia, its diabetes drug widely regarded as unsafe

See the Telegraph article. Incredibly Glaxo's response has been, ""Since 2007 we have seen results from six controlled clinical trials looking at the cardiovascular safety of Avandia. Together they show that this medicine does not increase the overall risk of heart attack, stroke or death."" - And the band played believe it if you like...

Glaxo playing the wide-eyed innocent sits oddly with the ghastly history of the usage of this drug, and the tactics, including intimidation, GSK have employed to try to suppress the facts about its adverse effects. You can read some of that history here: http://wildeaboutobesity.blogspot.com/search/label/Avandia.

Further attention drawn to health risks of GSK's diabetes drug, Avandia

See This is London article, where you will read that "David Graham, of the Food and Drug Administration, said patients taking the drug had a 27% greater chance of suffering a stroke, a 25% increased risk of heart failure and a 13% greater chance of dying."

GlaxoSmithKline's OTC 'Slimming Pill', Alli, May Be Causing Liver Damage

The Telegraph reports that "the pill contains the drug orlistat which some users have claimed can bring on hepatitis and other liver abnormalities. Other reported side effects have been headaches, diarrhoea, abdominal discomfort, depression and fatigue."

You do not need to take risky'slimming' drugs to lose weight. The easiest, safest, fastest way to lose excess weight is to give up dieting and concentrate instead on avoiding salt and salty food. This entails eating plenty of real food, cooked from fresh, instead of processed food and ready meals, which contain a lot of added salt. Cutting down on salt/sodium causes the body to excrete excess water (fluid retention), which is the cause of excess weight.

People who are overweight/fat/obese are sensitive to salt, which for them can result in sodium and water retention and therefore, obviously, weight gain. This in turn can result in calcium deficiency, which causes fat retention. Reducing salt intake reduces both the fluid retention and the fat retention. - Reducing calories does not address the fluid retention problem at all and that is the explanation for the fact that diets don't work.

Prescription drugs including many steroids, many antidepressants, anti-psychotics and epilepsy drugs as well as other pharmaceuticals, are a major cause of fluid retention/obesity/salt sensitivity and especially of morbid obesity. - Avoid taking prescription drugs unless they are absolutely necessary.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations.

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Free flights, meals and match tickets given to doctors by drug companies can damage patient care, say critics

Drug giants accused over doctors' perks
Article from the Guardian

Extracts:

"Drug companies are spending millions of pounds every year on all-expenses-paid trips to conferences around the world for doctors and other hospital staff, in what critics say is a massive marketing exercise dressed up as medical education.

The Guardian can reveal the scale of pharmaceutical company sponsorship following an examination of the registers of gifts and donations to doctors that all hospitals are required to keep. They show considerable largesse - from drug companies regularly picking up hefty bills for travel to international conferences in Europe, Asia and America, to specialist nurses' salaries, and weekly sandwich lunches for hospital staff training sessions.

All-expenses-paid trips to conferences in the US, Vietnam or Hungary are a regular feature of the registers, costing the companies up to £5,000 per doctor. Many of the declarations by doctors do not put a price on the trip. The total amounts received by staff at individual hospital trusts with complete registers are substantial - Sheffield's staff received funding of more than £105,000 from pharmaceutical and medical devices companies in the 12 months to last June.

Examples of the firms' hospitality include:

· Astra Zeneca paid £2,500 for a doctor at the Royal Bournemouth trust and £1,500 for a doctor at Sheffield teaching hospital to attend a cancer conference in Texas

· Sanofi-Aventis, the world's fourth biggest pharmaceutical company, paid for doctors at the Countess of Chester trust to go to conferences in Cape Town, New Orleans and Barcelona. At Gateshead trust, their reps gave a breakfast for 30 staff "to discuss drugs for the treatment of breast cancer". The trust's register records that "the donor was seeking to secure business".

· Roche spent £2,000 for an oncology consultant at Addenbrooke's hospital in Cambridge to go to a conference in May last year.

· GSK, the biggest British pharmaceutical company, paid £1,200 for a consultant at Sheffield teaching hospital to attend the 11th international congress of Parkinson's disease and movement disorders in Turkey last June."

"Joe Collier, the recently retired professor of medicines policy at St George's hospital, London, a former member of the Medicines Commission and an adviser to the select committee, said: "Through its orchestrated campaigns affecting all those involved in the use of medicines, the pharmaceutical industry enormously influences what patients are prescribed. On the whole these influences are detrimental to best practice."

Payments to doctors are far from transparent. The Department of Health requires NHS trusts to compile registers of their medical staff's and directors' possible conflicts of interest and to make them available to the public. Only a minority do so. The Guardian requested the registers for 90 hospital trusts under freedom of information legislation. Only around a quarter returned data that included the names of the doctors and the sponsoring companies and the amounts of money received. Some refused to give any information at all.

Collier said this was unacceptable. "Declarations of interest are a key way to help break the pharmaceutical industry's stranglehold. It is not a trivial issue. Public declarations by doctors are essential if prescribing is to be sensible and appropriate and according to patients' needs.""

"Labour MP Paul Flynn described as "codswallop" the companies' claim that their only intention was to help educate doctors. "It's not true. It's part of a huge marketing budget. It's all about maximising their profits, not helping people in life-threatening situations," he said. "The influence of these companies is enormous."

Doctors who receive funding believe they are not influenced by it. Robert Storey, a consultant cardiologist at Sheffield involved in drug trials, took four trips to conferences in the year to June 2007 courtesy of Astra Zeneca at a total cost of £12,000. However, he regards these as business trips because he is asked to disseminate research findings and are funded from the R&D budget. More junior doctors have their funding arranged through the drug rep and must fly economy class under Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) rules.

"If it is done through the local rep, who may expect some sort of favour in exchange for that sponsorship, there is more stringent regulation," said Dr Storey. "[Those doctors] are seeing reps on a regular basis and although it is explicitly stated in the ABPI rules that there shouldn't be any conflict or conditions [on the funding], it probably does influence doctors' behaviour because they are unsure whether they will get further sponsorship for going to further meetings, so it is useful to them to engender good relationships with different reps."

I personally regard most of these expenses-paid junkets as bribery.

GlaxoSmithKline could pay Swiss company Actelion up to 3.3 billion Swiss francs (1.6 billion pounds) to develop an insomnia drug

GSK to pay Actelion up to 1.6 bln for drug rights
Article in International Herald Tribune

Extract:

"Glaxo, Europe's biggest drugmaker, beat many of the world's top pharmaceuticals companies to partner Actelion's sleeping pill almorexant and the deal sent the Swiss biotech's stock soaring nearly 10 percent on Monday."

If you suffer from insomnia you can improve your sleep without taking drugs. - Reducing salt/sodium intake improves sleep so just try to avoid salt and salty food.

A senior pharmaceutical executive has been forced to resign his position as an advisor to the schools inspectorate, Ofsted.

GlaxoSmithKline executive resigns as Ofsted adviser
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Paul Blackburn, the vice-president and financial controller at GlaxoSmithKline, was appointed to Ofsted two weeks before the company won a contract to vaccinate 12 and 13-year-old schoolgirls against the sexually transmitted virus linked to cervical cancer.

Yesterday GSK said "unfounded allegations" were made to Ofsted and Mr Blackburn had been asked to resign by the schools watchdog.

It had been hoped that Mr Blackburn would bring private sector expertise to the public sector. His contribution had been praised by Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary."

Schools Secretary Ed Balls is at the centre of a controversy over the appointment of a top executive with the drugs company GSK to the board of Ofsted

The following paragraph is copied from http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/Newsletter/archive/newsletter_2008_07_jul_09.html

A scandal is mushrooming because the Schools Secretary has appointed a Glaxo exec to the board of the government's official education watchdog agency, known as Ofsted. And the move occurred less than a month before the government awarded a reported $200 million contract to Glaxo for its HPV vaccine for school-age girls 12 years and older, which some parents fear will give a green light to teenage sex, The Daily Mail reports. The appointment also comes at a time when a growing number of families are filing lawsuits against Glaxo over its Paxil antidepressent, claiming the drug caused suicide or attempted suicides.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Smells fishy to me...

Glaxo 'downplayed' warning on heart-attack risk from Aids drug. Can GSK be trusted?

Glaxo 'downplayed' warning on heart-attack risk from Aids drug

Extract from The Independent

"The multinational drugs company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) downplayed an early warning about the rising number of people who have suffered heart attacks after using one of its drugs, abacavir. An anti-Aids medication, abacavir is taken by tens of thousands of people worldwide.

GSK was officially told of the possible risk in May 2005, three years before it issued a statement to its investors saying that the findings of an even stronger potential link between heart attacks and abacavir are "unexpected" and "unconfirmed". The company also said that it could find no association between abacavir use and heart attacks following a trawl through its internal data. However, it failed to mention that its own summary of product characteristics issued when the drug was launched in the late 1990s had described "mild myocardial degeneration" in mice and rats given the drug for two years.

Some scientists moni-toring the safety of Aids drugs are privately furious with GSK for downplaying the significance of one of the biggest safety trials of abacavir – one of several anti-virals taken by Aids patients in combined HIV therapy – when the findings were published last month.

"GSK was extraordinarily well prepared in terms of a statement that downplayed the significance of the findings," said a scientist close to the safety study. "As a consequence, people are confused. They think there is something wrong with the study because GSK said it cannot find evidence to support findings of a link with myocardial infarction [heart attack]."

Alastair Benbow, European medical director for GSK, said the company takes information about drug safety seriously but did not want to highlight what may be "spurious observations" about abacavir.

The first public sign that abacavir may be linked with increased heart attack risk emerged this April when The Lancet published the worldwide "DAD" study into adverse reactions to anti-HIV drugs after clinical observations of 33,347 Aids patients across Europe, Australia and the US.

The study found that the risk of having a heart attack in patients taking abacavir was almost double that of HIV patients who did not take the drug."

In fact there are MANY other prescription drugs that also increase the risk of heart attack: - all the drugs that cause weight gain, in fact. That is all tricyclic antidepressants, e.g. amitriptyline, most steroids, e.g. prednisone, prednisolone, HRT and some contraceptives, some anti-psychotics and many other drugs.

For your health's sake, you should avoid prescribed drugs if you possibly can.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See FAT RETENTION

advice for pregnant mothers

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

GlaxoSmithKline and one of its key executives are facing possible manslaughter charges re. side-effects of an anti-Hepatitis "B" vaccine

US VACCINE MAKER TARGET OF HOMOCIDE INVESTIGATION
In a criminal case guaranteed to send shockwaves throughout the international pharmaceutical industry, French authorities are targeting a US-based drug company and its executives in a homicide investigation. The multi-billion dollar corporation GlaxoSmithKline and one of its key executives are facing possible manslaughter charges stemming from allegations that the company failed to fully disclose side effects from an anti-Hepatitis "B" vaccine distributed between 1994 and 1998. Also being investigated is the French-based drug company Sanofi Pasteur, which also sold doses of the Hepatitis "B" vaccine, according to French news sources
Read article at newswithviews.com

More about the guilt of GSK re. Seroxat, and the guilt of the agencies, including the MHRA, that should have protected people from this dangerous drug

See http://truthman30.wordpress.com/ and http://seroxatsecrets.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/glaxo-fails-in-its-responsibility-to-patients-and-it-hid-seroxat-data-its-official/

Law on drugs tests to be tightened. - The drug companies have lots of lawyers. I'll believe it when it happens, not before.

Law on drugs tests to be tightened
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Drugs companies must reveal the results of clinical trials as soon as they uncover potential problems with their medicines, the Government has announced.

In a statement, Kent Woods, Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), has said it will "take immediate steps to ensure the law is strengthened, so that there can be no doubt as to companies' obligations to report safety issues."

The move comes after a four-year investigation into how GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) withheld the full results of their trials into the anti-depressant Seroxat on children.

The Government watchdog criticised the company, which is Europe's biggest drugs manufacturer, for not handing over the trial data earlier.

But it added that criminal charges could not be brought as robust legislation was not in place at the time.

Mr Woods said: "I remain concerned that GSK could and should have reported this information earlier than they did. All companies have a responsibility to patients and should report any adverse data signals to us as soon as they discover them.

"This investigation has revealed important weaknesses in the drug safety legislation in force at the time."

The trial data revealed that there was a higher risk of suicidal behaviour among children younger than 18 on Seroxat than those given a placebo.

The results also found that Seroxat was ineffective in dealing with depression in those under 18.

It was handed to the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA) in May 2003, despite GSK having allegedly been aware of the results since 1998.

A month later, in June 2003, the MHRA announced that doctors must stop giving Seroxat to those under 18.

Miss Primarolo will say that GSK should have informed the MHRA earlier than it did, but that the drugs company will not face criminal charges.

The MHRA investigation found that the company could have told them earlier, but did not break the letter of the law by not doing so, as current legislation is not clear as to when a company should reveal the results of its clinical trials."

This is shocking! - I can't say that I've much respect for the MHRA. - It seems to have had mixed loyalties. There's been a lot of GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) cash associated with the bank balances of members of the MHRA.

If anybody is under the misapprehension that the MHRA - Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (An executive agency of the Department of Health) is doing a good job and is not overly influenced by or even in the pocket of the drug companies I invite you to read this page, the author of which has a particular interest in the drug, Seroxat - http://fiddaman.blogspot.com/2007_04_05_archive.html - Here is an extract from the page:

"I've looked through the pdf file for THE COMMITTEE ON SAFETY OF MEDICINES ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2004 and will show you all those members who have ties with Glaxosmithkline.

Remember, The Committee on the Safety of Medicines (CSM) was 'apparently' an independent advisory committee that for 40 years advised the UK Licensing Authority on the quality, efficacy and safety of medicines - In other words they offered advice to the MHRA. It was replaced on 30 October 2005 by the Commission on Human Medicines which combines the functions of both the former committee and the Medicines Commission

I've just gone through the declared Personal Interests to highlight the members whom had ties with Glaxosmithkline.

PERSONAL INTERESTS

MEMBER

Professor A Blenkinsopp - GSK Specific – Fees

Professor H Dargie - GlaxoSmithKline Consultancy

Dr M Donaghy - GSK Shares

Dr J C Forfar - GSK Shares

Dr R Leonard - GSK Fees/ Publicity work

Prof D J Nutt - GSK Consultancy Psychotropics and 300 shares

Professor J F Smyth - GSK Consultancy

Professor Christopher Bucke - SKB Shares

Prof Nicholas Mitchison - GSK Shares

Dr Brian J Clark - GSK PHD student funding

Professor Robert Booy - GSK Consultancy

Professor S M Cobbe - GSK Research grant

Professor J E Compston - GSK Consultancy

Dr A Glasier - GSK Shares (£10,000)

Dr Andrew A Grace - GSK Consultancy

Dr P Hindmarsh - GSK Consultancy on growth, probably lapsed by now

Professor P D Home - GSK Consultancy

Dr R F A Logan - GSK Shares

Professor R MacSween - SmithKline Beecham Shares

Professor J O’D McGee - SmithKline Beecham Shares

Professor David R Matthews - GSK Honorarium for advice

Dr A Smyth - GSK Conference expenses

Professor A D Struthers - GSK Shares

Professor J C E - GSK Shares

Dr A Gerard Wilson - GSK Consultancy

Dr Rosemary Leonard - GSK Fees/ Publicity work

Mr David P S Dickinson - GSK Fee paid work

Dr Charlotte C D Williamson - GSK Shares

Professor Anthony H Barnett - GSK Advisory work and lectures diabetes related products

Professor V Krishna K Chatterjee - GSK Consultancy on preclinical research with a Vanillord Receptor antagonist (Consultancy end of 2004)

Professor Albert - GSK Shares

An 'independent' advisory committee huh?"

Surely personnel working to protect the public from the harm that prescription drugs can and do cause, should be strictly forbidden from being paid consultants to drug companies and doing research and publicity for them and from being holders of drug company shares?

Prescribed drugs do far, far more harm than good. Their side-effects account for most of the serious avoidable illness in the parts of the world that have the misfortune to be users of Westernised medicine.

As well as giving information about salt, salt sensitivity and about obesity, my blog heavily criticises the drug companies and their drug-pushers - i.e. the medical profession.

My website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ is about the special harm that prescribed steroids. HRT, amitriptyline and some other drugs do. See in particular http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

My Mensa article is here: Obesity and the Salt Connection

My 'political' page is http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html (Do, please, try to read the whole of the page.)

Anyone interested in anti-depressants would find this material very interesting indeed - The Antidepressant Web

Guard your health! - As far as you possibly can, steer clear of doctors and their dangerous drugs!

Amazing, isn't it? that GSK has reported better-than-expected first half results, when its drugs cause so much harm to the patients who take them...)o

Glaxo triumphs despite drug scares - Guardian

GlaxoSmithKline shares fell as doctors avoid prescribing Avandia, their diabetes drug.

GSK suffers as doctors avoid allegedly risky diabetes drug - Guardian

Extract:

"GlaxoSmithKline took another hit yesterday amid signs that doctors in the US were avoiding its blockbuster diabetes drug Avandia after a study linked it to increased risks of heart attacks and death.

Data from ImpactRX indicated that the drug's share of the market for newly prescribed oral anti-diabetics in the US fell to around zero from about 10% in the two days after the study was published on May 21st. ImpactRX, a market intelligence firm, tracks the impact of pharmaceutical promotion on the prescribing behaviour of physicians in the US.

A Deutsche Bank note, which highlighted the information, said: "This reaction is far worse than we had anticipated and suggests that there could be as much as 22% downside risk to GSK's near-term earnings, suggesting that there is still further downside to GSK's share price."

It added that switching rates, or patients moving from one drug to another, were currently three times their usual level.

Shares fell accordingly, closing down 28p, or 2.1%, at £13.06, having tumbled 9% last week following publication of the study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Avandia is GSK's second-biggest selling drug, with sales around £1.4bn last year."

An excellent non-drug measure people with diabetes can take is to reduce their intake of salt and salty food to a minimum. It really does make a big difference. This has the added benefit of reducing any excess weight and reducing high blood pressure and risk of stroke, etc. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)