Pharma Boss Admits Drugs Don't Work

[Guest guest]

You simply have to be amazed and awed at the stones these people

have when they manipulate spin on subjects like this... To bold

face tell the public that they, the pharma companies, have KNOWN

that 90% of prescription drugs (mind you, don't forget about the

exorbident prices they have been charging for these drugs), work

less than half percent of the time, more like 30%, or even 25% of

the time... Then to say, the reason is not because of the drugs but

because of your genes- (always blame the patient), so now they are

proud to present gene testing- (with another exorbident fee I am

sure) so they can make sure the exorbident drugs might actually work

for you.

What???!!!

Other comments?

Misty L. Trepke

http://www..com

 

 

Drugs Do Not Work on Most Patients

 

" The vast majority of drugs - more than 90 per cent - only work in

30 or 50 per cent of the people, " Dr Roses said. " I wouldn't say

that most drugs don't work. I would say that most drugs work in 30

to 50 per cent of people. Drugs out there on the market work, but

they don't work in everybody. "

 

Published on Monday, December 8, 2003 by the lndependent/UK

Glaxo Chief: Our Drugs Do Not Work on Most Patients

by Steve Connor

 

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.

 

Drugs for Alzheimer's disease work in fewer than one in three

patients, whereas those for cancer are only effective in a quarter

of patients. Drugs for migraines, for osteoporosis, and arthritis

work in about half the patients, Dr Roses said. Most drugs work in

fewer than one in two patients mainly because the recipients carry

genes that interfere in some way with the medicine, he said.

 

" The vast majority of drugs - more than 90 per cent - only work in

30 or 50 per cent of the people, " Dr Roses said. " I wouldn't say

that most drugs don't work. I would say that most drugs work in 30

to 50 per cent of people. Drugs out there on the market work, but

they don't work in everybody. "

 

Some industry analysts said Dr Roses's comments were reminiscent of

the 1991 gaffe by Gerald Ratner, the jewelry boss, who famously said

that his high street shops are successful because they sold " total

crap " . But others believe Dr Roses deserves credit for being honest

about a little-publicized fact known to the drugs industry for many

years.

 

" Roses is a smart guy and what he is saying will surprise the public

but not his colleagues, " said one industry scientist. " He is a

pioneer of a new culture within the drugs business based on using

genes to test for who can benefit from a particular drug. "

 

Dr Roses has a formidable reputation in the field

of " pharmacogenomics " - the application of human genetics to drug

development - and his comments can be seen as an attempt to make the

industry realize that its future rests on being able to target drugs

to a smaller number of patients with specific genes.

 

The idea is to identify " responders " - people who benefit from the

drug - with a simple and cheap genetic test that can be used to

eliminate those non-responders who might benefit from another drug.

 

This goes against a marketing culture within the industry that has

relied on selling as many drugs as possible to the widest number of

patients - a culture that has made GSK one of the most profitable

pharmaceuticals companies, but which has also meant that most of its

drugs are at best useless, and even possibly dangerous, for many

patients.

 

Dr Roses said doctors treating patients routinely applied the

trial-and-error approach which says that if one drug does not work

there is always another one. " I think everybody has it in their

experience that multiple drugs have been used for their headache or

multiple drugs have been used for their backache or whatever.

 

" It's in their experience, but they don't quite understand why. The

reason why is because they have different susceptibilities to the

effect of that drug and that's genetic, " he said.

 

" Neither those who pay for medical care nor patients want drugs to be

prescribed that do not benefit the recipient. Pharmacogenetics has

the promise of removing much of the uncertainty. "

 

Response rates

 

Therapeutic area: drug efficacy rate in per cent

 

Alzheimer's: 30

Analgesics (Cox-2): 80

Asthma: 60

Cardiac Arrhythmias: 60

Depression (SSRI): 62

Diabetes: 57

Hepatitis C (HCV): 47

Incontinence: 40

Migraine (acute): 52

Migraine (prophylaxis)50

Oncology: 25

Rheumatoid arthritis50

Schizophrenia: 60

 

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd