Originally published September 8 2005
Drug companies still backing painkillers despite Vioxx ruling
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Despite the decision to award the widow of a Texas Vioxx user $253 million, companies like Merck and Pfizer are still betting on cox-2 inhibitors to raise profits, mainly, The International Herald Tribune reports, because consumers are still buying them and doctors still see potential in the drugs.
By deciding that the Merck drug Vioxx contributed to the death of a Texas man, a jury on Friday dealt another punch to the battered class of arthritis painkillers known as cox-2 inhibitors.
Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market last autumn over safety concerns, and Pfizer did the same thing a few months later with one of its cox-2 drugs, Bextra.
For one thing, some analysts have said that sales of Celebrex, another drug by Pfizer that is the only cox-2 remaining on the U.S. market, are already rebounding after a big slump last winter.
Merck has another cox-2 drug, Arcoxia, that is approved in 54 other countries and that generated worldwide sales of $100 million in the first half of this year.
Ando said the companies with cox-2 drugs in development would be reviewing the $253 million that a Texas jury awarded to the survivors of a Vioxx user and its aftermath to gauge the potential risks of being associated with the class.
Many analysts and doctors predict that the dearth of effective painkillers and the growing ranks of baby boomers suffering from aching joints will drive growth in the market.
Ando predicts that it will take the industry several years to define the drugs' cardiovascular risks and benefits clearly and to sort through a potential regulatory thicket before the market begins to really rebound.
Dr. Stanley Cohen, a rheumatologist in Dallas, said the withdrawal of Vioxx last September as well as Bextra in April had been devastating to some of his patients, even though he has tried to substitute with other drugs.
Cohen has tried Mobic, a drug marketed jointly by Boehringer Ingelheim and Abbott Laboratories, analgesics and older anti-inflammatories combined with Tylenol on his patients.
"There's really not much out there to treat patients who have chronic pain," Burch said.
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