Big Pharmas' Big Problem - part 4

The New York Times this week examined how the "image problems" facing the pharmaceutical industry are beginning to affect sales. According to the Times, Merck's withdrawal of Vioxx from the market because of safety concerns spawned an "industrywide credibility crisis."

This has not been helped by the more recent Pargluva story whch could have even deeper ramifications than Vioxx. It suggests that Big Pharma have learned nothing from Vioxx!

http://pharmagossip.blogspot.com/2005/11/pargluva-illusion-of-safety.html

Doctors are prescribing fewer medicines, such as antidepressants, that have been safety concerns, and FDA is now rejecting more new medicines.

In addition, "insurers and some states are taking advantage of the backlash" by switching patients from newer brand-name drugs to generic medications. In addition, sales at some Big Pharma companies, including Pfizer and Merck, are stagnant, which has led to layoffs and unusual research budget cuts.

Big Pharma, facing patent expirations, are depending on "stopgap measures," such as "evergreening": reformulating existing medications.

http://pharmagossip.blogspot.com/2005/10/evergreen.html

However, such efforts "appear to be losing their effectiveness, as consumers become more skeptical and insurers rebel against high prices for drugs that are not therapeutic breakthroughs," the Times reports.

Stock prices of pharmaceutical companies also are decreasing, and an index of drug stocks has dropped 25% in five years, the Times reports. In addition, according to an October poll, 9% of U.S. residents believed drug companies generally were honest, compared with 14% in 2004. In the same poll, 34% of people reported that they trusted banks and 39% trusted supermarkets.

Billy Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said that drug makers are trying to improve their image by advertising more carefully, disclosing more details from clinical trials and making more lower-priced drugs available to low-income individuals.

Tauzin said, "We've created an impression with the American public that when a drug is approved, it's perfectly safe," adding, "We have not done a good job about educating the patients of America that all drugs come with significant side effects".

This from the head of an organization that tried to scare the US public away from buying cheaper identical medicines in Canada by commissioning a pulp fiction novel!

http://pharmagossip.blogspot.com/2005/10/pill-fiction.html

Insiders' view: The time when Big Pharma could be trusted to clean its own house has long gone. Reform of the FDA to give it even more teeth would be a vital first step in regaining control of this "runaway" industry, which only one in ten of Americans now believe to be honest.

To read the first 3 parts of Big Pharma' Big Problem go here:
http://pharmagossip.blogspot.com/2005/09/big-pharmas-big-problem.html
and here:
http://pharmagossip.blogspot.com/2005/09/big-pharmas-big-problem-2.html
and here:
http://pharmagossip.blogspot.com/2005/09/big-pharmas-big-problem-3.html