Zantac Lawsuit


Researching drug company and regulatory malfeasance for over 16 years
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Saturday, June 02, 2007

GlaxoSmithKline Top Ad Spender, Didn't Publicize Avandia Risks

Source: Bloomberg

Just love the quote from Garnier don't you?

GlaxoSmithKline Plc was the drug industry's top advertiser last year, promoting its asthma and diabetes treatments to patients and doctors. Information the company didn't make well known is now drawing more attention.

London-based Glaxo knew its Avandia diabetes pill posed a risk for heart and circulatory complications as early as 1999, when the medicine won U.S. approval. The cardiovascular concern wasn't widely disseminated until May 21 when a Cleveland Clinic Foundation analysis reported that Avandia may cause a 43 percent higher risk of heart attacks than other drugs.

A similar review, begun in 2005 by Glaxo, found that Avandia raised the risk of reduced blood flow to the heart, including heart attacks, by 31 percent. The company gave the review to U.S. regulators and put it on its Web site last year amid more than 2,000 studies. Glaxo says the heart-risk studies, including its own, are flawed and it isn't obligated, or legally required, to highlight every study done on its drugs.

"Why would you publicize it?,'' Glaxo Chief Executive Officer Jean-Pierre Garnier told reporters at the company's annual meeting May 23 in London. "We don't publicize every submission we make to the Food and Drug Administration.''


It would be corporate suicide if you did huh Jeanie baby?

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