Doc Bans Drug Rep of Psoriasis Medicine January 31, 2008
Posted by healthandsurvival in Diseases, Drugs, medicine.Tags: amgen, Drugs, enbrel, health, medicine, news, psoriasis
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In May 2006, David Peng, a dermatology professor at the University of Southern California, was disturbed by claims made by an Amgen district manager, who was trying to boost Enbrel at the expense of an older psoriasis med, methotrexate. And so Peng banned Amgen reps from doing ‘lunch-in-learns’ with residents at his clinic at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, and decided to use a med by Genentech for an investigator-initiated study.We know this after reading an e-mail from an Amgen rep, Matt Mitchell, who was at the May 2006 sales call. He wrote this follow-up note to his manager: “During our call, he (Peng) expressed to me that the call you and I made on him in May really upset him. He took issue with some of the information you expressed to him about MTX: its safety and relative cost. He felt that the data was not properly represented. He stated that he has always had a lot of respect for Amgen and thinks that Enbrel is the best biologic. However, he thought that some of the claims you were making were not what he had come to expect from Amgen.”… Read Entire Story….
Do Epilepsy Drugs Increase Risk For Suicide? January 31, 2008
Posted by healthandsurvival in Children's Health, Diseases, Drugs, medicine.Tags: Drugs, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, lyrica, suicide, topamax
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The agency posted a warning on its web site this afternoon about an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors associated with 11 drugs used to treat epilepsy and certain psychiatric disorders. The drugs include Pfizer’s Lyrica, which is approved for treating pain associated with diabetes and fibromyalgia; Johnson & Johnson’s Topamax, which is also approved to treat migraines; and Glaxo’s Lamictal.“Patients who were treated for epilepsy, psychiatric disorders, and other conditions were all at increased risk for suicidality when compared to placebo, and there did not appear to be a specific demographic subgroup of patients to which the increased risk could be attributed. The relative risk for suicidality was higher in the patients with epilepsy compared to patients who were given one of the drugs in the class for psychiatric or other conditions,” the FDA wrote…..read entire story
