Avandia: rumo ao precipício?

Do sempre bem informado blogueiro do WSJ.

Avandia Dips: Pothole or Cliff? Posted by Jacob Goldstein New prescriptions of GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia dipped sharply last week after the New England Journal of Medicine published a study suggesting the diabetes drug raised the risk of heart attacks, according to pharma research shop ImpactRx. In a note to investors this morning, Deutsche Bank cited ImpactRx data showing that Avandia’s market share of newly prescribed diabetes pills fell from about 10% before the NEJM paper to roughly zero in the two days after the paper was published. The situation “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,” the note said. But the data don’t support such a far-reaching prediction, ImpactRx CEO Richard Altus argued in an interview with the Health Blog. “It’s premature to draw any conclusions from our data with respect to the future script writing of Avandia,” he said, adding that he was “shocked” at Deutsche Bank’s interpretation of his company’s figures. GlaxoSmithKline and Deutsche Bank have both been clients of ImpactRx, but Altus said he was not acting at GSK’s request. The Health Blog couldn’t reach the London-based authors of the note Tuesday afternoon for comment.