This pill makes you rich

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:20:00 GMT

Let's get down to the real nitty-gritty of what medicine is all about - money. As stock watchers amongst you may know, Big Pharma is being marked down by City (and Wall Street) slickers, who are putting up 'Sell' notes wherever they are seeing a pharmaceutical company.

Why? Haven't drug companies found a cure for cancer yet? Or perhaps they're not getting the rapid recovery rate for their patients?

Not a bit of it. Had that been the criteria for drug companies' share price, they would have been in the bargain basement long since. No, the reason for the panic sell is simply that many drugs are now passing out of the protection of patent, and so can be copied - with very minor modifications - by all and sundry.

In the past few days, both AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have been downgraded because several of their key profit-making drugs are soon to pass out of patent. GSK, in particular, faces a turbulent 2009 as some of its hot-shot drugs suddenly face stiff competition from the 'me-too' boys who will be swamping the market with very similar concoctions.

It's sad that medicine is so judged. As I've often observed, what purports to be a benefactor of mankind is, in fact, purely an instrument of gain for shareholders.

And the sooner everyone wakes up to that reality, the sooner we may finally see a medical model that first serves mankind and its suffering.

Off label, out of sight

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:54:00 GMT

Around 25 per cent of all prescription drugs are given to patients 'off label' or for unlicensed use (see BMJ, 1998; 316: 343-5). This means that, despite the expensive safety trials that all drugs have to go through, one in four is given either to a group - usually children - who were not part of any safety trials, or for conditions for which they were not tested to treat.

Not only does this practice provide the drug company with its profit margin, it also gives it a legal loophole that allows it to conceal research feed-back, even when it suggests the drug may be dangerous.

This is the reason why GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has escaped punishment after failing to reveal that its antidepressant Seroxat could increase the risk of suicide among the under-18s. Researchers at the UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) discovered that the data related to off-label use, and so the drug company was not compelled to tell drug regulators about the dangers.

The drug has since been banned, but files within the company suggest that GSK knew about the suicide risk at least five years beforehand.

While GSK acted within the legal requirements - bizarre though they may be - it can hardly claim the moral highground, as health ministers and MHRA have been quick to point out.

But, as drug companies have been known to hide damaging data when they should have revealed it, it's hardly surprising that GSK concealed their findings.

As it is, young people took their own lives, and GSK suspected they might without alerting anyone, and they did so in order to maintain profit margins.

Perhaps one day the penny will drop that drug companies are commercial, profit-making enterprises that are there primarily for shareholders, and not for the sick and needy.

Adverse Reactions : GSK

This pill makes you rich

Off label, out of sight