Posted on 06/05/2019 7:08:59 PM PDT by bitt
A U.S. drug company did not openly share or perform further studies on a successful rheumatoid arthritis medicine that internal researchers suggested was reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease by 64 percent, according to Washington Post article published Tuesday.
Researchers at Pfizer reportedly urged the firm to conduct a clinical trial after finding the potential hidden benefit of the anti-inflammatory drug Enbrel while analyzing insurance claims.
It was estimated to cost $80 million to conduct the trial, and Pfizer decided to pass.
Pfizer told the Post it did not pursue the clinical trial because its success rate would likely be low.
Enbrel had reached the end of its patent life and its profits were dwindling, meaning it may have made little business sense to invest in the trial, according to the Post.
Outside researchers said it would've helped the medical community for Pfizer to publish its findings, since doing so could have led to further discoveries about the complicated disease.
“It would benefit the scientific community to have that data out there,’’ said Keenan Walker, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins who is studying how inflammation contributes to Alzheimer’s. “Whether it was positive data or negative data, it gives us more information to make better informed decisions.’’
At least one medical ethicist agreed.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
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If they would have started claiming it treats Alzheimer’s the FDA would have come down on them like the jackboots they are.
Much like how the EU version of the FDA said that water cannot be marketed as a prevention of or treatment for dehydration.
So they sold their soul and kept their money so we could lose our minds.
Eisenhower warned of a “military-industrial complex” but the medicinal-pharmeceutical complex is more deadly.
Count me out. :)
This is just the same old media narrative of evil medical corporations are evil, we need socialism to fix it.
A statistical correlation in insurance data is not evidence of efficacy and is not a reason to invest 100’s of millions in research, when other research into biologic anti-inflammatories have been dead ends.
It’s hard to treat a disease before you know the cause.
I thought that the government wants to keep the people demented and dumbed down.
Except that they did. I researched it way back when.
All this “gotcha” played by the media is tiresome.
There were good reasons not to publish these results. As others have noted, the FDA frowns on claims of efficacy not backed up by rigorous studies.
“Enbrel had reached the end of its patent life and its profits were dwindling, meaning it may have made little business sense to invest in the trial, according to the (WAPO)Post.”
Generic could be used? NIH for the studies?
I’ve a ‘feeling’ that we are going to learn more about drugs that have been kept secret from the public...
(Reminds me - we need a proof of life photo of RBG)
Pfizer is under no obligation to conduct any study it doesn’t choose to.
“Enbrel had reached the end of its patent life and its profits were dwindling, meaning it may have made little business sense to invest in the trial, according to the Post. “
this is totally ridiculous: any drug company worth its salt will give its left nut to obtain a new patent for a new use for an old drug that has an expiring patent for an old use ...
:) Sith lords communicate via holograms.
***Generic could be used? NIH for the studies?***
I can't imagine anyone spending millions of dollars to do a clinical study for a generic. However, I do think something unsettling is happening in the drug market. My surgeon's office was dismayed when I told them that Soma (carisoprodol) was currently unavailable. They had just been bragging on how helpful it is in spinal neck surgery. I have been buying the generic for over 20 years for something like 40 pills for $15. I suspect it will reappear on the market 40 pills for $100.
I bought Fioricet (butalbital) 20 years ago 50 pills for $6; now 45 pills costs $100. The med itself was created about 100 years ago. Something is going on with prescription drugs and I do not think it is going to turn out very well.
Please clarify:
Are you saying this story is false, because you yourself researched using Enbrel as a anti-Alzheimer several years ago?
If so, can you give more information without violating any NDAs?
No, not with Enbrel. I used to work for the research company that came up with it. It's a TNF analogue, a very complex molecule that can only be produced within a mammalian cell, specifically a CHO (Chinese Hamster Ovary) cell, in small batches in bioreactors. It doesn't scale up in the way that yeast cells do. And it has to be incredibly pure, because it's a cytokine and the dosage has to be carefully controlled or it will depress immune activity too far. But it works.
Is there a fine for a company doing something like this that harms patients?
It was in news stories. I was planning to see if they had it in Mexico yet for my MIL when/if it was available there.
OK, got it.
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