Pharma Blog Watch

Pfizer's Torcetrapib Study (Pharma Watch)
In his blog, Michael Lascelles discusses recent news about Pfizer's investigational cholesterol drug torcetrapib, including findings showing, among other things, that it may raise blood pressure (BP) slightly. "A few Pfizer-friendly 'opinion leaders' are saying that a 3-4-mm Hg increase in BP is nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, as some epidemiologists have already shown, this level of BP increase at a population level leads to 20% higher stroke mortality and a 12% higher mortality from ischemic heart disease."

"I see that Pfizer also got their latest research on torcetrapib pulled from the American Heart Association meeting this week because their marketing people couldn't restrain themselves from hyping the drug before the results were out," he writes. "They broke the meeting embargo and published some results themselves — so the AHA rejected their study. Quite right."