"Sweet" some of you might be thinking. "Asthma sucks, and more people are getting it. A new treatment surely must be e a good thing."
Except that a budesonide-containing single-agent therapy for the maintenance treatment of asthma is already on the market. It's called the Pulmicort Turbuhaler®. Guess who makes it? AstraZeneca. When AstraZeneca says "new" what they mean is "just different enough to keep patent protection." Those of you in the profession have heard this tune many a time before, and I was ready to throw the letter onto the "same crap different day" pile when I saw this:
Do you see the part where it says "The clinical response of this new dry-powder inhaler compared with PULMICORT TURBUHALER tends to be lower? Jesus H., Big Pharma bastards used to at least have enough respect for the medical community to try to come up with a lie about how the new bullshit patent extending product was supposedly better than what it was designed to replace. Now they just come flat out and tell you the new stuff doesn't work as well. Here it is again. This is a chart showing the effectiveness of the old Turbuhaler, the new "Flexhaler" and a placebo. The new product is the second line on the graph.
The graph shows just what you think it does. The new product is less effective than the old one. And the gap appears to get bigger with time. Just in case you have trouble interpreting the data, AstraZeneca spells it out for you again in the text right above the chart.
Oh. AstraZeneca also says they will be phasing out the more effective Turbuhaler "so as to minimize confusion in the marketplace"
Yeah......drug companies are all about minimizing confusion. That's why Kaopectate is now Pepto-Bismol, and why Maalox is Pepto Bismol, but not all Maalox, just the total stomach relief Maalox, and why Midol contains Tylenol, except when it contains Aleve.
And when I say Tylenol I mean the Tylenol that's Tylenol, not the Tylenol that's really Benadryl. It's all about minimizing the confusion in the marketplace. Christ. I guess they still do respect us enough to lie.
Ok kids, lets go over what we've learned:
AstraZeneca Is about to introduce a new product.
This new product will be less effective than the current product it manufactures.
The product that works better will no longer be made. If you don't like it, you can go screw.
It's all about minimizing confusion in the marketplace.
Well I for one will be able to breathe easier tonight........of course I don't have asthma.
7 comments:
I'm with you on this one. It's a variation on the "our patent has nearly expired lets make a new stereoisomer/once daily-weekly version, dissolvable version and stop making the original product befor the generic companies start competing with us on price."
Haven't seen a flexhaler. What's the perceived advantage cf Turbohaler? Why are they comparing 180mcg with a 200mcg Turbohaler? Has it a snaller particle size, or something weird like that?
It's a shoddy business. Why do doctors prescribe new products like this that would seem to have a zero advantage? (Oh yes, the cute large-breasted reps, I remember)
Oh joy...my kid's asthma is controlled on the Turbuhaler so let's go screw things up for him.
I've been away from the pharmacy for the last four weeks and I have four weeks until I return. I hope one of those cute, large-breated reps comes in to detail me on the Flexhaler. All that ever stops by my pharmacy are the 50ish guys who slur their speech because they just came out from the bar down the street. Well, there is the cute Ultram ER chick with the bangin' bod that wears too much mascara, but she only comes by every couple months.
I am soooo glad my son (who has severe asthma) is not taking pulmicort so I won't have to deal with that bullshit. How completely ridiculous. Between this and the HFA albuterol crap people with asthma are getting completely hosed. I guess I'll have to wait until Flovent and Singulair start to lose their patents, then it'll be my turn to bend over some more.
Well in my daily act of futility, I called AstraZeneca (1-800-236-9933) and the FDA (1-888-463-6332). The lady at AstraZeneca was incredibly professional and could easily work for the cigarette companies. Her story is that customers asked for taste and a dose counter as feedback that they were getting the drug. THe FDA asked for the trials so they did them, but the trial results were never intended to be anything other than a hoop to jump through. The lady at the FDA couldn't even find the study until I told her where to look in her material.
Well, damn.
Can I still buy a single-puffer albuterol thing-a-mabobber or did they replace those with something too? O.o;
This sounds like the company that makes Prozac renaming it and marketing it in pretty pink and purple packagingn to women with premenstrual dysmorphic disorder, probably another made-up disease.
My son has been well maintained on Pulmicort Turbuhaler. He also has severe food allergies and the new Flexhaler has lactose. Even that small amount could and has caused an anaphylaxis reaction for him. So now we need to find a new medication all together. He can't take Singulair, he got an upper respiratory infection everytime we tried it.
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