BBC highlights AZ’s Seroquel woes
pharmafile | January 27, 2010 | News story | Sales and Marketing | AstraZeneca, Seroquel, industry reputation
AstraZeneca’s ongoing US legal battle over its antipsychotic drug Seroquel was highlighted this week in a BBC radio programme.
AstraZeneca is being sued by more than 14,000 people in the US over the drug’s side effects, and the BBC Radio 4’s File On 4 programme suggests the company downplayed evidence linking Seroquel, launched in 1997, to obesity and diabetes.
The programme, which went out on 26 January, said tensions were evident in AstraZeneca’s UK operation between clinicians and those responsible for marketing the brand.
The BBC heard from the company’s former UK medical manager John Blenkinsopp, who left AstraZeneca in 2000, and said he had “robust discussions” with the marketers.
“They either wanted to say that there was no weight gain or that the weight gain was only for a short term,” but Blenkinsopp said he would not approve these claims. “The data pointed in the opposite direction,” he added.
“They were desperate for a differential advantage over one of the competitor products and they didn’t have one.”
Seroquel, the company’s second-biggest selling drug, is worth more than $4 billion a year. It was launched to treat schizophrenia and later bipolar disorder, and is prescribed to millions of people worldwide.
“In the end I was put under quite a significant amount of pressure by the marketers to sign off claims with regards to a lack of weight gain and I was unwilling to sign that off,” Blenkinsopp says.
“The marketers made it clear that this could be a career-limiting step.”
AstraZeneca said they wouldn’t comment specifically about former employees but that they were “currently reviewing” the matters raised in the programme.
The company would not be interviewed for the programme, but in a written statement said: “Seroquel is an important medicine and its safety and efficacy has been evaluated in clinical trials with thousands of patients.”
The programme makes it clear the manufacturer says evidence does not back up the claims that Seroquel was responsible for any alleged injuries.
The company went on: “When Seroquel was first approved in the US, the label alerted physicians that diabetes militus, hyperglycaemia and weight gain had been observed in clinical trials.”
There was a reference to weight gain in AstraZeneca’s marketing material but lawyers argue that it should have been more prominent.
“We continue to update the label on these topics as the science has developed,” the statement continued.
“Diabetes is a very common disease and the type of diabetes at issue in these cases typically develops over a period of ten to 12 years. It’s difficult to determine why a particular individual developed the disease.”
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