Poor Pfizer.
Despite Vioxx, they have not given up on their coxib painkiller Celebrex.
They must be desperate for products to promote!
Annual sales are expected to top $2 billion this year after falling to $1.7 billion last year. Sales were at $3.3 billion in 2004.
Yet, the likelihood that Celebrex will again be a $2 billion-a-year drug surprises Sharon Levine, a physician and associate executive director of the 6,400-member doctor group that cares for Kaiser Permanente customers in Northern California.
"I'm stunned," she says. "Given its modest benefit as a pain reliever and its modest theoretical benefit for gastrointestinal protection ... it's an expensive choice in a category where there are many others."
Not many Kaiser patients were on COX-2s before the Vioxx withdrawal, she says. Now, Kaiser doctors put even fewer patients, less than 1%, on Celebrex, she says.
Nationwide, Celebrex captured 9.3% of new prescriptions among arthritis drug users in July, says market researcher Verispan.
More at USA Today
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