Healthy Skepticism Library item: 730

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Reuters.
Celebrex Prescriptions Plunge After Risks Identified
The Wall Street Journal 2004 Dec 30

Full text:

New prescriptions for Pfizer Inc.\‘s COX-2 inhibitor Celebrex (celecoxib) fell 56% last week after the company released data showing the drug may increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, the Wall Street Journal reports.

And new prescriptions for naproxen, sold under the brand name Aleve, fell 33% after the National Institutes of Health linked it also to possible heart risks, the paper said, citing data from Verispan, a market-research company based in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

The data, based on the dispensing activity of about 55% of prescriptions issued in U.S. pharmacies, found that Celebrex\‘s share of new prescriptions for arthritis drugs dropped to 7.9% at the end of last week from 14.9% a week earlier.

Mobic (meloxicam), sold by Boehringer Ingelheim and Abbott Laboratories Inc., is among those picking up patients who are switching from Celebrex, the paper said. Last week Mobic gained 24,088 patients in the U.S., including 13,591 who had been prescribed Celebrex.