How about YOUR question here?
Read below or choose another question.
|
|
|||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
||||||||||
FROM THE ARCHIVES: December 19, 2002
FDA Approves Clozaril To Reduce Suicide RiskBy OTESA
MIDDLETON WASHINGTON -- Novartis AG's Clozaril Thursday became the first and only drug approved to cut the risk of suicidal behavior in people with schizophrenia, a debilitating mental disease that often leads to suicidal thoughts and attempts. The Food and Drug Administration made the announcement just six weeks after its panel of psychiatric experts recommended the drug for the novel approval after Novartis successfully compared the drug to Eli Lilly & Co.'s Zyprexa. FDA said Clozaril should be used in patients who have had suicide attempts or who are repeatedly hospitalized for suicidal behavior. Although Clozaril is viewed by the psychiatric community as a highly effective drug, its sales lag behind its competitors because patients taking Clozaril have to undergo weekly or biweekly blood tests to look out for a potentially life-threatening blood-related side effect. The side effect concerns led FDA to limit Clozaril's initial approval to only the most difficult-to-treat schizophrenics. For this year, Clozaril is expected to bring in $315 million in sales, according to Neil Sweig, pharmaceutical analyst at research firm Fulcrum Global Partners. Mr. Sweig said the additional suicide approval won't provide an uptick in sales for Clozaril in the last days of 2002, but next year it may spark a slight increase in interest in the product. "It should add some sales to the drug," Mr. Sweig said. "It would not be sufficient to make Clozaril into a much more successful drug. Sales are quite low and have been swept aside by Zyprexa and Risperdal." Clozaril, which has been on the U.S. market since 1989 ushered in a new wave of so-called atypical antipsychotic drugs. These newer products didn't produce trembling side effects the older medicines did. However, the blood toxicity associated with Clozaril led its successors to take much of the market share away from the pioneer drug. Lilly's Zyprexa is expected to far surpass Clozaril with $3.8 billion in sales, followed by $2.1 billion for Johnson & Johnson's Risperdal and $1.1 billion for AstraZeneca PLC's Seroquel, Mr. Sweig said. Generic versions of Clozaril, which have also cut into the sales of the brand-name original product, will not be able to claim treatment of suicidal behavior for 36 months according to Novartis's release. About 1% of the population or 2 million Americans have schizophrenia, a brain disorder that causes hallucinations, voices, delusions and incoherent speech. Over their lifetime, 20% to 40% of people with this disease will attempt suicide and 10% will take their own lives. FDA announced last week Clozaril is one of a number of drugs that will not be allowed into the U.S. from other countries because the blood safety information may not be included in imported products. FDA also warned consumers not to buy Clozaril on the Web. Write to Otesa Middleton at otesa.middleton@dowjones.com4
Updated December 19, 2002 5:13 p.m.
|
|||||||||||
|
Copyright
2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Printing, distribution, and use of this material is governed by your Subscription agreement and Copyright laws. For information about subscribing go to http://www.wsj.com |
Send me your comments, or your own question to be answered. Only two fields are required, but you are cordially invited to fill in all the others also.
|
I promise to answer your message -- click here to send me a personal message
|
SUBSCRIBE: The Wednesday Letter is a free electronic monthly newsletter written and published by Karl Loren. You can view more than 50 back issues of this publication by clicking here. The Wednesday Letter subscription list is maintained on a secure server, no name is ever given or sold to anyone, and it is never used except for this Newsletter. It is automatically published on the Tuesday night just before the first Wednesday of every month. You can subscribe to this free monthly electronic letter by entering your eMail address and name below. You will then automatically receive a request for confirmation, sent to whatever address you have entered. If you do NOT receive this confirmation request, then you will not be subscribed. There may have been an error with your address and you should resubmit. The letter is never sent twice to the same address -- so you do not have to worry about a duplicate subscription. When you receive this confirmation request you must reply to it, or your subscription will not become active. No one can subscribe your name, and address, without you being notified, and if you get an unwanted notice of subscription you only need to DO NOTHING and the subscription will NOT be active.
REMOVAL: You can remove yourself from the subscription list in several different ways. Click here to read about this entire newsletter system. Every edition of The Wednesday Letter is delivered to your address with YOUR name and address in view on the letter, with a link that allows you to remove THAT name from the subscription list. If you try to send this removal message from an address different from the one you used to send in your original confirmation, then you will get a warning notice first, sent to the subscription address, asking you to confirm that you want to be removed from the list -- by replying to THAT request for confirmation, you will then be automatically removed. Thus, no one else can unsubscribe you, from some other computer, without your knowledge. But, if you send in the unsubscribe notice from the same machine used to receive the Letter, then the removal from the subscription list is automatic.
Personal Message: When you send a personal message to Karl Loren, you will receive a personal reply as per his instructions. Karl pledges that every personal message will get a personal answer. When you provide your mail address, we will send you free information including our free catalog and a cassette tape lecture by Karl Loren about heart disease, no charge, by mail, even if outside the US. You can select particular information you would like to receive, along with the free cassette tape and catalog.
You can reach Vibrant Life in many ways, including by mail to Vibrant Life, 2808 N. Naomi St., Burbank, CA 91504. Within the US and Canada, use the toll free number: (800) 523-4521, the local number: (818) 558-1799, the FAX: (818) 558-7299, eMail to kimberly@oralchelation.com or any one of the hundreds of message forms throughout the 50 web sites. Vibrant Life normally ships the same day we get an order. There are message forms on each of the 100,000+ pages on this and other sites where you can communicate with Vibrant Life. Check out our companion site, at: http://www.oralchelation.net where Karl's 2000 page book is published. Karl Loren is the author and webmaster for this BOOK, as well as for another web site about ORAL CHELATION. His personal philosophical articles are at PHILOSOPHY.
Copyright © May 20, 2008 6:23 AM by Karl Loren on behalf of Vibrant Life, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Permission is granted for non-commercial downloading, copying, distribution or redistribution on two conditions: One, that some form of copyright notice is included in every copy distributed or copied, showing the copyright belonging to Vibrant Life, Burbank, CA, at www.oralchelation.com . The second condition is that the material is not to be used for any purpose contrary to the purposes and objectives of this site. This permission does not extend to materials on this site which are copyrighted by others.
