Posted on 06/05/2019 10:33:08 AM PDT by RummyChick
One of the world's biggest drug firms deliberately buried data showing one of its arthritis medications could slash the risk of Alzheimer's.
Pfizer kept its finding under wraps for more than three years because, it claims, it didn't believe the evidence was strong enough.
It found the link between Alzheimer's and the drug Enbrel when analysing medical insurance claims in hundreds of thousands of people in the US.
People taking Enbrel, an anti-inflammatory used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, appeared to be 64 per cent less likely to develop the memory-robbing disorder.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Agree. Drugs are for continued treatment not to cure the problem. No money in that.
Exactly!
Folks are looking for something to ding another pharmaceutical company for, and have fallen for this story line.
No company is going to take a pass on mushrooming sales figures across the nation/world.
Corporations are ravenous to see increased profits.
“Why would a drug company hide a potential market?”
Simple. As an anti-inflammatory, they can earn $1 billion per year on the drug. But, as a preventative for Alzheimers, they can earn $10 billion per year or $100 billion per year on the same drug.
They need to figure out how to tune it specifically to Alzheimers then figure out how to make it a separate product to earn the $10 billion. And make sure people don’t figure out they can use the cheaper anti-inflammatory to achieve the same or nearly-same results on Alzheimers.
:: They were confused (They have alzeimer’s) ::
You have won the internet! Congrats, bruh.
It wont work. Its that simple
Therein lies the problem.
If the patent expires then others come in cheaper. Patients jerry rig generic it to fit the Alzeihmer’s dosage.
I believe Enbrel is an immunity-suppressing drug. Since certain diseases are auto-immune disorders, like psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, Enbrel suppresses your immune system so it cannot attack you and cause those symptoms. However, in doing so, it leaves you open to other diseases that your immune system routinely fights off. This is why they have warnings that "certain cancers, like lymphoma" can result from taking it.
I have an auto-immune disorder called Grave's Disease. One doctor suggested that I take Enbrel to reduce the swelling of my proptotic eyes (which required several surgeries). I demurred on Enbrel because of the side effect warnings.
This brings up the question: is Alzheimer's an auto-immune disease?
Beer does the opposite.
Good list. See my #43 where I postulated your last bullet. The last thing they want is people taking an anti-inflammatory drug to prevent Alzheimers that earns them $1B per year when they could tweak or tune the formulation a bit, make it a separate product, and earn them 10X or 100X that amount.
Your fifth bullet gave me a good laugh — “They were confused (They have alzeimer’s)” LOL.
Actually what they found is that people who remembered to take their Enbrel daily were 64% less likely to have alzheimers
;)
Easy.......1500.00 per month.cost......i used it for Psoriatic arthritis... not drug companies..... insurance companies
If the two groups (Alzheimer's and non-Alzheimers) were not controlled for all other variables (for instance, age) then the results are meaningless.
This is the problem called "hidden variables" or "confounding factors".
Since I am not a Dr I really dont know what I am talking about. What I will say is that even Dr’s don’t know.
Too much is unknown.
for example, Adam10 might be why Enbrel or another drug might work
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141208093246.htm
Excellent application of one of the First Principles of Engineering Economics — “sunk costs don’t matter one bit to your current decision.”
Emotionally, that is very hard to do. “Yes, but I spent SO MUCH already, just a little bit more and I KNOW we’ll be successful.”
The historical product development funnel is always true:
* 1/10 of what goes into fundamental research proceeds to the applied research.
* 1/10 of what goes into applied research proceeds to product development.
* 1/10 of what goes into product development proceeds to market introduction.
* 1/10 of newly introduced products succeed in the market and make big money.
I think if I started showing signs I would take the risk. I probably wouldn’t at this point due to side effects...which is why I try to stay off drugs.
Evidence the drug might work was found in 2015. Patent was going to run out in 2018. Thanks to big government, the cost would be too great in time and money to do clinical trials.The low ratio of benefits to costs to the company would have made the decision to do the trials irrational.
Sounds like this was at work in the coup and FISA warrants.
I believe you are in good company.
Marty Feldman and Abraham Lincoln, IIRC. and my old boss-lady. She was so good that I actually miss working for her.
It isn’t that easy. Just because a drug has shown accidental positive feedback doesn’t get it legal for that purpose. There are so many hoops to jump through with the FDA and the AMA that it would have extended the production and use of the drug for years possibly even if the drug interaction was positive. I have little doubt that the FDA would have stopped the production of the drug if Pfizer had told them it did something other than what they were approved to determine that wasn’t dangerous (so far). And that would have increased both the time to get it approved onto the market and raised the cost possibly double.
rwood
Same way insulin here costs ten times what it costs in Canada. A three-hour round trip from home and no prescription required. Guess where my wife shops?
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