Top-selling Rx drugs in the USA
November 3, 2009
Which was the top-selling prescription drug in the USA last year?
- Abilify
- Celebrex
- Plavix
- Lipitor
How much did sales increase for OxyContin in 2008 compared to 2007?
- 140%
- 110%
- 90%
- 75%
Lined up from first to last (1o to 200) by sales volume, where would you rank Lexapro?
- 30th
- 21st
- 11th
- 8th
Answers are here… (PDF file)
presented by Griffith Publishing
Drug companies doing well in recession
May 11, 2009
Who’s making money develoing new drugs to fight disease?
According to Medical News Today, revenues of publicly traded companies involved in developing new drugs grew 12% last year to US$89.7 billion. In the U.S. if you add up all the revenue and expenses for these drug companies, the industry achieved a profit last year for the first time in history.Total profit was $0.4 billion.
Drug research companies are relying on the following planks to bolster revenues and industries in the future:
- Generics. The more high-demand generics are sold, the less pressure there should be on proprietary restraints by insurance companies.
- U.S. healthcare reform. The day is approaching when drugs will be priced according to their benefits, and this should spark incentives for the research and development of new drugs.
- Globalization. In an ever-shrinking world economy, the U.S. drug industry finds itself poised to cooperate with countries with capital to invest.
For more information about how biotech firms are doing in the recession, go to Medical News Today. For an interesting report on the apparent immunity to the recession by nonprofit biiotech firms, see the Washington Business Journal.
Brought to you by Griffith Publishing and Physician Publishing.
Just the facts, please
April 26, 2009
Doctors and the rest of us are tired of slick ads that promote the latest miracle-working medication. We realize that companies in the business of manufacturing pills spend more on advertising than they do on research. We’d just like that advertising to be based on reality, not on marketing dreams.
A chunk of all drug advertising–about 14 percent, according to PR Watch–goes to DTC, (direct to consumer) a form of advertising the Federal Drug Administration made legal in 1997. Viagra and Lipitor are two examples of advertising that used DTC make the brands household words.
As much as drug companies want ordinary folks like us to choose their products, they are far more interested in the doctors who prescribe them. Every week an average of 28 office-to-office sales reps, known as “detailers,” visit family doctors to explain why their company’s pills should be prescribed. This costs the sponsoring companies about $8,290 per doctor every year. Even more expensive are the special events drug companies host for doctors to learn more about their latest offerings. Conferences with sponsored speakers are another expensive but effective way to get the attention of physicians.
Both doctors and consumers are backing away from drug promotion that isn’t backed up by facts. If an ad promises to relieve, cure, or prevent a medical problem, they want evidence. More to the point, they want to know if it doesn’t work. They want to know the facts about side effects, the number of people who are not helped by the drug, and their statistical chances of getting better after taking it.
Here are some reports you should read if you want to know about the tightrope between drug production and drug acceptance and how you as a prescriber or patient are affected.
Big Pharma: Tough to Swallow. People know they need Big Pharma (ads and all), but they still don’t like it.
Consumers, Docs Crave Facts from Drug Ads. Study says distrust of Big Pharma has made both skeptical of emotional appeals.
Big Pharma Spends More on Advertising than Research and Development, Study Finds. Almost twice as much, as a matter of fact.
Direct to Consumer Advertising in the U.S. The only other country that allows direct-to-consumer advertising is New Zealand. Facts and numbers about how drug advertising dollars are spent.
Brought to you by Griffith Publishing.
The FDA grades prescription drugs for the public
October 21, 2008
The Federal Drug Administration has released a list of prescription drugs that could involve safety problems for patients who are taking them. There is also the possibility that patients who suddenly quit taking them because they’re on the list could suffer worse problems. Below is the first list, which was released on September 5 and is based on findings from January through March of this year.
The FDA emphasizes that no cause-and-effect relationship has been established between taking these drugs and worsening health problems. The FDA has only identified a potential risk, and patients taking these drugs should talk to their physicians about them. Further studies are needed to establish the actual risk and the most effective course of action.
One of the drugs on the list, heparin, has been taken off the market, and others may be restricted or removed as well. Some will be cleared of safety concerns.
| Product Name: Active Ingredient (Trade) or Product Class |
Potential Signal of Serious Risk/New Safety Information |
|---|---|
| Arginine Hydrochloride Injection (R-Gene 10) | Pediatric overdose due to labeling / packaging confusion |
| Desflurane (Suprane) | Cardiac arrest |
| Duloxetine (Cymbalta) | Urinary retention |
| Etravirine (Intelence) | Hemarthrosis |
| Fluorouracil Cream (Carac) and Ketoconazole Cream (Kuric) | Adverse events due to name confusion |
| Heparin | Anaphylactic-type reactions |
| Icodextrin (Extraneal) | Hypoglycemia |
| Insulin U-500 (Humulin R) | Dosing confusion |
| Ivermectin (Stromectol) and Warfarin | Drug interaction |
| Lapatinib (Tykerb) | Hepatotoxicity |
| Lenalidomide (Revlimid) | Stevens Johnson Syndrome |
| Natalizumab (Tysabri) | Skin melanomas |
| Nitroglycerin (Nitrostat) | Overdose due to labeling confusion |
| Octreotide Acetate Depot (Sandostatin LAR) | Ileus |
| Oxycodone Hydrochloride Controlled-Release (Oxycontin) | Drug misuse, abuse and overdose |
| Perflutren Lipid Microsphere (Definity) | Cardiopulmonary reactions |
| Phenytoin Injection (Dilantin) | Purple Glove Syndrome |
| Quetiapine (Seroquel) | Overdose due to sample pack labeling confusion |
| Telbivudine (Tyzeka) | Peripheral neuropathy |
| Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) Blockers | Cancers in children and young adults |
Heparin: the final word
October 5, 2008
Three-dimensional view of the heparin molecule
The Federal Drug Administration has made the final link between the blood-thinning drug heparin and death by patients using the drug.
We reported earlier that heparin with certain lot numbers contained oversulfated chondroitin sulfate. This slight change in the chemical can result in a severe allergic reaction leading to anaphylactic shock and has been determined to be responsible for the deaths of 81 persons in the US, as reported in the news media, including USA Today.
When the drug, manufactured by Baxter, was first associated with a steep increase in allergic reactions, the company immediately withdrew the drug from the market and began an investigation. The contamination was traced to a manufacturer of heparin ingredients in China. Investigators now believe that the company used the pollutants as ingredients to save money. Too often, inspections of remote suppliers of drug materials are rare or nonexistent. US officials say it would take 27 years to inspect each of the thousands of chemical manufacturing firms in China.
Meanwhile, the FDA has issued warnings about the use of heparin in hospitals.
Tainted or not, the use of heparin and other drug thinners is associated with more than 60,000 mistakes in hospitals, according to the Joint Commission on the Acceditation of Hospitals. (AP News). Nearly 3 percent of the mistakes resulted in health problems or death to the patients. The most famous error was the accidental administration of life-threatening heparin overdoses to the just-born twins of actor Dennis Quaid at a Los Angeles hospital last November.
B6 just might help you like it did me
July 7, 2008
I was embarrassed to the core a couple of years ago when I started “leaking” and experiencing other signs of incontinence. I’m not that old! But I bought the “diapers” and padded myself to keep from causing a public scene of some kind.
When I mentioned the problem to my doctor, he immediately wrote me a prescription for Detrol. Talk about fast results! My incontinence stopped immediately, but I couldn’t handle the severe dryness of my mouth or the sore tongue that resulted.
One day I noticed a bottle of B6 vitamins in my cupboard and remembered that my doctor had suggested them when my hands were tingling and numb on occasion. The sensation went away, and I still had most of the pills left. Since they’re “just” B pills, I decided that it wouldn’t hurt me to take them, so I began taking one 100-mg pill a day.
Within three days, to my total surprise, my incontinence quit. Just stopped. No more leaking, no more embarrassing moments. Now it’s been about two months of freedom and total control over my bladder.
I asked my doctor about this, and he just shook his head, said maybe the B6 affects neural messages or something. But he said it wouldn’t hurt me to continue on 100 mg a day, and so I am.
Then I noticed a letter from a reader of a newspaper column by “Dr. Gott” who said she’d had the same experience I did. B6 had taken away her incontinence, too.
I’m not a health care professional and am not going to proclaim this as a sure-all cure, but it’s so economical and for me was so effective, I think it’s worth a try. Check with your doctor to be sure there isn’t a risk of some kind of a reaction you don’t want. If it works, let me know.
Send me email at hodi@mindspring.com.
For more about B6:
Information from the National Institutes of Health
Salugenecists (information looks good; I don’t know these people)
Prescription drugs end up in the wrong hands
May 18, 2008
Prescription drugs are ending up in the wrong hands. Addictions, severe reactions, and death are the result. One in twenty persons over age 12 used a prescription drug for non-medical reasons in a twelve-month period, according to one government-sponsored study.
The misuse of prescription medications ranges from using pills long after they have expired or sharing pills with someone else to setting up a sales operation, as one California physician did, selling pain pills and other medications in exchange for $100 for a “medical exam” that consisted of the transfer of funds from the “patient” to the physician.
Check out the following information sources:
General story: “Prescriptions supplanting illegal substances as drugs of choice,” by Tim Reiterman, Los Angeles Times.
Report of research showing that one in five teenagers misuse prescription drugs, Partnership for a Drug-Free America.
Offer of grants for research on ways to reduce the steep rise in inappropriate use of prescription medication, National Institutes of Health and National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Teens and prescription drug abuse, by Marc Siegel. Los Angeles Times.
For a copy of the research report, Prescription Drugs: Abuse and Addiction, call the National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information 800 729-6686.
To report the illegal sale or abuse of prescription drugs call the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s hot line at 877 792-2873
Where heparin comes from
May 6, 2008
No comment, but this picture by Gordon Fairclough of the Wall Street Journal shows how pig “guts” give up pulp that is then heated in concrete vats.
Heparin: China says, “Not us,” “Not here”
May 6, 2008
What would you expect from China? A three-page admission of wrong-doing in the supply of a death-dealing ingredient that goes into the blood-thinning drug, heparin?
Hardly.
China responded by saying the US can’t prove that the “heparin-like” substance that contaminated the supply of heparin came from China and that Baxter won’t cooperate with their investigation.
They’re blaming Baxter and the FDA for not considering more options for the severe allergic reaction that has resulted in 81 deaths so far. Their logic is based on the fact that not everyone who took the drug got sick and that people got sick who did not take a version of the drug containing the alleged contaminant. They also feel that any conclusion is premature until they know the age, illness, past history and other details of those who has suffered from the problem.
Baxter’s statement in response was that they were cooperating to the fullest extent possible.
Read the International Herald Tribune’s account of the latest development in the heparin mystery.
Medications keep giving and giving…
May 5, 2008
The Associated Press launched a five-month investigation of drinking water in cities across the US. Their researchers found an alarming number of prescription drugs ranging from antibiotics to sex hormones in drinking water supplied to at least 41 million Americans.
The quantities were very small, probably too small to affect the body, but so widespread that concerns are growing about the need for testing the presence of prescription drugs in our drinking water.
Back in 2002 scientists met in the US to discuss the pollution of water by drugs as “a newly emerging issue.” Not really new. Sludge examined twenty years before the meeting found that incoming sewage used in recycling water systems was laced with aspirin, caffeine, and nicotine, according to symposium director Christian G. Daughton.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing better ways of disposing of unused drugs. Instead of flushing them down the toilet, they should be mixed with “undesirable” waste in the trash and disposed of that way, according to comments by the EPA.
It is hard to sort through the emotion-heavy reports and appeals on the Web about the “crisis” in our water supply. One “reliable” source turns out to be funded by a second “reliable” source that turns out to be owned by a third “reliable” source, each quoting the other as “reliable” but with no other credentials.
The EPA does come through with guidelines and suggestions for finding out if your tap water is safe to drink and what to do about it if you have questions.
(Presented by HealthWorks, a publication for health and safety in the workplace by Griffith Publishing)
