Glaxo chief: Our drugs do not work on most patients (??!!!!!!)

[Gloria]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=471139



Glaxo chief: Our drugs do not work on most patients
By Steve Connor, Science Editor

08 December 2003

A senior executive with Britain's biggest drugs company has admitted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them.

Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them.

It is an open secret within the drugs industry that most of its products are ineffective in most patients but this is the first time that such a senior drugs boss has gone public. His comments come days after it emerged that the NHS drugs bill has soared by nearly 50 per cent in three years, rising by £2.3bn a year to an annual cost to the taxpayer of £7.2bn. GSK announced last week that it had 20 or more new drugs under development that could each earn the company up to $1bn (£600m) a year.

Dr Roses, an academic geneticist from Duke University in North Carolina, spoke at a recent scientific meeting in London where he cited figures on how well different classes of drugs work in real patients.

MORE

[lcordero]

1. of course

it is modern day snake oil. They gain nothing by having treatments or drugs that actually work.
If drugs actually worked they wouldn't be able to make a profit.

[unblock]

2. yup, known for some time

at least their not going (too far) down the tobacco company path of lies and denial.

imitrex, i giant glaxo blockbuster, is a miracle worker as far as i'm concerned, but it doesn't always work for me, and even when it does it's usually not 100% effective. and i'm one of the lucky ones for whom it actually works at all.

still, it's changed my life for the better, so from my own vantage point i'm not complaining.


i also know that when they perform human clinical studies, they explicitly screen out non-responsive patients. i was refused as a participant in a migraine preventative treatment study because i've already tried several unrelated preventatives, almost all with no effect.

so because i'm non-responsive, i'm eliminated from the pool, leaving the remaining pool abnormally rich with highly responsive patients, inflating the apparent effectiveness of the new drug.

[nuxvomica]

5. I took imitrex for a while for migraines

It worked at first and then worked less reliably. The longest I have gone without a migraine was after being treated by a homeopath, who tailored the remedy to all of my signs and symptoms. The remedy produced the worst migraine I had ever had previously and I haven't had another since. Most pharmaceuticals treat or manage illness, usually by suppressing disease rather than removing it. Or possibly creating new diseases that mask it. Dr. Roses "admission" derives from a desire for more genetic research rather than a necessary rethinking of whether double-blind studies have any reliable connection to human health and well-being.

[Cleita]

3. This is beyond cruel.

How many old people have made sacrifices in their life styles to buy drugs that are supposed to help them and all it turns out is that they are providing rosey profits and luxurious lifestyles for the drug industry.

This is disgusting.

[BiggJawn]

4. "There's a benefit to taking this drug..."

Is what my ex-doctor always told me. Puts me on Glucophage XR, it doesn't work, add the Glucotrol XR, a little better, but not really good, so he adds a third med.

"Why are you keeping me on the oither 2 if they don't work? (and cost me $70 a month out-of-pocket)

"Because they still have a benefit" is the answer I got. Hope he won the sales contest now that I'm not in his "written" pool anymore....

Somebody in the UK, tell us, do you get bombarded with "Ask your Doctor" ads like we do?

[Warpy]

6. Opiates need to be OTC

We'd have a much more civil society if people were allowed to treat their own pain.

Remember, the per capita of hardcore opiate addicts hasn't changed since they were legal at the turn of the 20th century.

All the Draconian drug laws do is keep people in pain. Of course, desperate people will always try the latest non narcotic nostrum from the drug companies. However, it seldom works.

[BiggJawn]

9. What's THAT got to do with in-effective diabetes meds?

I smell an Agenda....

[camero]

10. I went through the same thing

All the drugs worked for awhile but then they stopped working. Then I had to put up with all that "What are you Doing?" stuff. Like it was my fault the meds stopped working. The drug companies are just a big racket with thier advertising and "educational" seminars for doctors.

Oh, and I should mention that the doctors love the free meals.

[PissedOffPollyana]

11. Been to a couple of "educational" events

... with a friend who is an internist. Both were for the seratonin receptor drugs, though I am not sure why someone in internal medicine would need "education" on them.

None the less, both events were in luxury boxes at major sporting events (football & hockey games) with a massive spread of food and open bar all day. The "education", which took a little longer because it was damned difficult to tear folks away from the free goodies & drinks, was an aprox 30-45 minute period. There was a BRIEF presentation followed by some of the most inane questions I have ever heard by educated people. Everyone knew what the minimum time frame was to allow their party and played along, even though they had little interest in the drug outside of "what the drug co will do for me".

I must say, I have not been to a doctor since and have a far more cynical view of the medical establishment. I've been researching "doping" across the board (esp. ritalin & medical trials) and the industry seems even more corrupt than I had initially thought. I'm sure there are plenty of great doctors out there, but there are just as many opportunists and charlatans pushing them down the wrong road.

I wonder how many people will hear this little gem of truth and how many will actually take the brave step to stop taking meds that don't work anyway.

[BiggJawn]

13. I hear ya! "Hmmmm...Packing on a few pounds, I see..."

If he had done his OWN research instead of asking the drug salesman "Any downside to this one?" he would have known he had me on TWO meds listed as causing "moderate weight gain"...

Yeah, they love the free meals, especially when they're served out on the veranda in Curacao at the "All-Carribe Viagra Conference"...

[camero]

14. Avandia and Actos cause you to retain water

That's more than likely where the weight gain comes from. They finally put me on insulin, which is what they should have done long ago because my insulin resistance was due to my being thin.

You learn something new everyday.

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. Even more reason now

to legalize marijuana.

It's cheap, anyone can grow it, and it probably works better than any of the drugs these guys can cook up in their labs. It is a crime that something so safe and effective is denied to the millions of people who could benefit from it.

[Tinoire]

8. Our drugs do not work on most patients???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile thanks to companies like Glaxo, pharmaceutical prices are through the roof, marijuana is still criminalized (they're bottling that one), health care is astronomical and we have mini-wars with 3rd world countries that reproduce the medicines of companies like Glaxo for cheaper... the entire time Glaxo is whining that their medication is so expensive because of all the R&D that only gets us to Our drugs do not work on most patients??!!!

We won't even talk about the immeasurable suffering of laboratory animals!


:wtf: Our drugs do not work on most patients.

If this isn't a corporate classic, I don't know what is!

[cthrumatrix]

12. our tax dollars at work....via...medicare reform bill.....thx shrub