Galen launches new COPD cough treatment
pharmafile | December 4, 2006 | News story | Sales and Marketing |Â Â Â
Erdotin, a new treatment that reduces the severity of 'productive' or phlegmy coughs in COPD patients, has been launched in the UK.
Marketed by Galen, Erdotin (erdosteine) works by disrupting the lung bacteria, which cause infections and worsen the cough of patients with COPD.
The drug has been available for more than 10 years in 31 countries, and has been licensed by Galen from Edmund Pharma, the Italian company which discovered it.
Erdotin has anti-adhesive, anti-oxidant and mucolytic (AAM) properties and significantly reduces the severity and frequency of coughs, while also at least doubling symptom resolution when combined with antibiotic treatment amoxicillin, compared with amoxicillin alone.
COPD contributes to the death of 30,000 people in the UK each year, 20 times the number of people who die from asthma.
An estimated three million people suffer from COPD in the UK, and exacerbations are a common feature of the condition.
Evidence suggests the average patient has between two or three exacerbations every year and these contribute to lung damage and accelerate the inevitable decline in airways function and quality of life.
Exacerbations account for 10% of all acute hospital admissions, and for those admitted to hospital the outlook is poor: Just over a third will be readmitted, 14% die within three months and 23% die within a year.
Erdotin is taken in a 300mg dose twice daily for up to 10 days in response to an acute bronchitic exacerbation of COPD. The treatment costs £5 for a course of treatment, which Galen says is a similar price to that of the traditional mucolytic treatments and it is not, therefore, anticipated to increase NHS prescribing costs.
