That’s the title of a Financial Times article that begins:
Wall Street often flocks to Big Pharma as a port in the storm when the markets turn south, but this time round it may be sailing into trouble.
Many investors cite market research indicating that pharmaceutical companies are good “defensive” plays amid rising interest rates and higher oil prices. Since 1972, healthcare stocks have gained 10.02 per cent annually amid rising rates, according to Ned Davis Research, trouncing the other sectors…
Short View: Big Pharma, big trouble By Stephen Schurr – Published: August 22 2005 21:38
The rest of the article requires paid membership or giving your credit card number. But we can get the story from plenty of other sources like The Health Care Blog which liberally quotes the Wall Street Journal article.
more…
The jurors in the small town of Angleton near Houston TX, deciding against Merck’s arthritis’ drug Vioxx didn’t listen closely to the complex science presented by Merck’s witnesses but they did notice their evasion and stonewalling on direct questions. They decided against Merck and for damages of $253 million. The case revealed that Merck knew about the dangers of Vioxx in 1997 two years before they released it to the public.
In interviews, jurors expressed anger and mistrust toward Merck. “If I could say it in one word: hiding,” said Mr. Chizer, 43, who works at the Social Security Administration. “Every time a question was asked, any one of [the Merck] witnesses circumvented the questions by going somewhere else. Just give us a straight answer.”
There are also some questions arising about Celebrex Pfizer’s arthritis drug. You may have noticed their ads with seniors dancing/doing yoga in the park have been pulled. A friend of mine had to stop taking Celebrex because it was causing him to have ‘mini-strokes.’ It had given him a new life for about a year up until he started having the blackouts. Pfizer drug Viagra’s side-effects are gaining public attention forcing Pfizer to tone down their ads by removing the promise of increased libido.
The drug industry in general is in big trouble:
At the same time, a slew of safety fears, including those over Vioxx, has further sullied the industry’s reputation. Pfizer faces lawsuits over Bextra, a drug whose active ingredient, like Vioxx’s, is COX-2 inhibitors. Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) will have to decide the future of the COX-2 drugs in their pipelines. Eli Lilly recently reached a $690m settlement with thousands of users of Zyprexa, its schizophrenia drug. GSK could also face legal challenges over Seroxat: on August 22nd, new findings suggested previous warnings that the anti-depressant increased the risk of suicide among teenagers should be extended to adults. The Economist
This is a big subject which concerns all of us since sooner or later, we may be sitting across from the doctor’s desk as (s)he writes on her/his prescription pad the name of one of these Big Pharma products. Or it may be for a family member or friend. Some so-called miracle drugs have a dark side as we are seeing with this Vioxx scandal.
The Daily Show (August 22, 2005), made fun of both sides of the Vioxx case, calling the patient’s lawyer a ‘blowhard.’ Later Rob Corddry as a “Senior Drug Dealer” in an extremely funny, bitter and truthful segment keeps repeating “ask your doctor.” He explains that drug companies cannot say specifically how a drug works or detail its good effects because then they would legally have to tell you about the bad side effects.
For another day, and another diary:
The world’s most prescribed drug, Lipitor which lowers ‘bad’ cholesterol will benefit from the US Food & Drug lowering the numbers on healthy cholesterol levels in patients. That will put more patients in “need” of Lipitor. Does anyone doubt that there was some lobbying on the part of Pfizer in order to achieve this boost?
