Healthy Skepticism Library item: 7465

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

Cohen R.
More and more, it's becoming a dog-eat-pill world out there
The Star-Ledger (New Jersey) 2007 Jan 14
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1168753477177390.xml&coll=1

Full text:

WASHINGTON — The pharmaceutical industry is going to the dogs … and cats.

Though only a small segment of their overall business, big drugmakers including Pfizer, Novartis, Wyeth and Merck are finding a growing market for prescription medications to treat America’s 74 million canines and 90 million felines.

“People are willing to lavish money and attention on their pets,” said Ben Deijhton, editor of Animal Pharm World Animal Health & Nutrition News, a trade publication. “And as animals are treated more and more as members of the family, they are receiving the same kinds of medical treatments as those family members.”

In recent years, the animal pharmaceutical medicine chest has expanded from rabies vaccines and flea, tick and heartworm remedies to products for animal pain relief and arthritis, anxiety and compulsive behaviors, geriatric care, heart ailments, cancer, AIDS, gum disease and obesity.

Global sales of animal health products reached $17.4 billion in 2005, up from $16.1 billion in 2004, according to data from Animal Pharm.

While medicines for livestock animals like cattle, pigs and chickens account for the bulk of the global business, Animal Pharm estimates that pharmaceuticals for companion animals — dogs, cats and horses — generated $6.8 billion in worldwide sales in 2005 and are projected to reach $8.6 billion by 2010.

Fueling the increase are a growing number of pet owners willing to spend hundreds, even thousands, of dollars a year on animal drugs.

Anthony DeCarlo, head of the Red Bank Veterinary Hospital in Shrewsbury, said “the success rate of treating animals has come a long way” in recent years because of all the new medications.

At the same time, he said, the “multitude of choices has made things more complicated,” requiring veterinarians to be very deliberate and carefully weigh the benefits, the risks and the need. The Food and Drug Administration has seen a steady increase in the number of adverse events linked to the use of animal drugs — including deaths — reported by veterinarians and pet owners.

Silvija Hagenfeld of Lakewood, who owns 31 cats and four dogs, said she spends thousands of dollars a year on drugs for her pets, and has given them painkillers, chemotherapy drugs, antibiotics, vaccines, and thyroid and heart medicines.

“If I gave the list of all the medicines, it is more than humans are using,” said Hagenfeld. “I have used absolutely every medicine there is for every kind of illness. To me, my animals are my pleasure and my life.”

Earlier this month, the FDA approved the marketing of Slentrol, the first prescription medication in the U.S. for overweight dogs. The Pfizer drug, which will be available in the spring and cost pet owners about $1 to $2 a day, is aimed at dogs who have grown fat because of overfeeding and a lack of exercise.

PAIN RELIEF

Another Pfizer product, Rimadyl, was the first of many arthritis drugs for dogs and has been a big seller for a decade. Rimadyl is similar to human painkillers like Aleve and Advil, and in its marketing, Pfizer tells pet owners, “It’s what dogs would ask for.”

According to Brakke Consulting, pain management products for dogs and cats now represent a $200 million market for drugmakers, “with potential still to be tapped.”

Novartis has a drug called Clomicalm, an anti-depressant for separation-related anxiety disorders to help dogs “return to a normal life” and stop barking relentlessly and tearing up furniture. Pfizer makes Anipryl to treat cognitive dysfunction syndrome in aging dogs, a condition similar to Alzheimer’s.

Merial, a company jointly owned by Merck and Sanofi-Aventis, markets Eencard to treat mild, moderate and severe heart failure in dogs, as well as Oravet, a gel to prevent cat and dog periodontal disease. Wyeth markets Fel-O-Vax vaccines to prevent feline AIDS, feline leukemia and other diseases.

Georgette Wilson, manager of veterinary operations at Pfizer Animal Health, said the company is “always looking for opportunities to make sure companion animals live longer and healthier lives” through the development of new treatments.

She said the diet drug for dogs fits that bill, pointing out there are as many as 17 million overweight dogs in the United States who could be helped to shed pounds and avoid health risks associated with being too fat.

Drug companies spend tens of millions of dollars and can take a decade to develop, test and get FDA approval for each new animal drug, some of which are variations of human medications.

“As people have placed greater emphasis on the role of companion animals in their lives, breakthroughs in human medicines have carried over into animal medicine,” said Ron Phillips, a spokesman for the Animal Health Institute, an industry trade group.

SIDE EFFECTS

Phillips said “pets are living longer and fuller lives” with increased use of medications, but he acknowledged that dogs and cats also have experienced some of the same problems as humans in regard to side effects and adverse reactions.

In 2005, the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine received 33,500 reports of adverse reactions to animal drugs — including deaths — from pet owners, veterinarians and manufacturers, according to the latest yearly data available. That is up from 28,000 in 2004 and 18,000 in 2000.

It is estimated that only about 10 percent of all adverse reactions from animal medications are actually reported to the FDA.

Since going on the market, the Pfizer painkiller Rimadyl has generated almost 15,000 adverse event reports, including 1,692 canine deaths and 45 cat deaths.

Deramaxx, a painkiller made by Novartis Animal Health that has similarities to Merck’s human painkiller Vioxx that was removed from the market in 2004, has resulted in 3,600 adverse reaction reports and 347 deaths of dogs.

In 2004 at the request of the FDA, Fort Dodge Animal Health, a division of drugmaker Wyeth, recalled its ProHeart 6 heartworm medicine from the market after it caused serious side effects. The FDA received some 5,500 adverse event reports, including more than 500 deaths.

The case also resulted in allegations that Wyeth sought to discredit an FDA official overseeing the investigation into the product’s problems — a charge denied by the company.

The animal drug companies, like their human drug counterparts, actively promote their products to professionals and consumers. But the scale is much smaller than the human drug market, where global sales reached $602 billion in 2005.

Sales representatives routinely call on veterinarians to promote their products and hand out free samples. The drug companies offer seminars and dinners and free gifts, engage in Internet promotions and advertise in magazines, professional journals, on television and the radio.

Peter Falk, who runs the Ocean County Veterinary Hospital in Lakewood, said clients often ask for pet medications they have heard about through consumer advertising.

“As an experienced practitioner, I won’t just write a prescription for them because it is something they want,” said Falk. “Animals don’t talk and it is our job to be advocates for the pets.”

Falk said the “larger arsenal” of new drugs has been helpful, but he noted that some problems like canine obesity and obsessive-compulsive behaviors might be eliminated through changed habits of pet owners, such as giving the animals more exercise.

“Our society is fast-paced and we are always looking for quick fixes, but that is not always the best way to handle things,” he said.