Pharma Blog Watch

The Growing Number of Diabetes Drugs (GoozNews)
In his blog, Merrill Goozner discusses an article in the New England Journal of Medicine about "me-too" diabetes drugs, including "Januvia by Merck, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last October. Another drug in its class, Galvus from Novartis, could be approved any day. These new drugs represent the first entries from the ninth, I repeat, the ninth class of medicines developed to reverse the chronically high blood sugar associated with diabetes."

"The FDA had very little information about Merck's new diabetes drug before approving it. 'There was only one published, peer-reviewed, moderately large clinical trial; it included 392 treated patients who were followed for 18 weeks to judge the efficacy and safety of the drug'," he writes, quoting the article. "And the results of that paltry trial? The drug 'is one of the less effective glycemia-lowering drugs introduced in recent years.'"

"Within two months of its introduction, Merck's new drug had captured 14 percent of the diabetes market, according to business reports. How could that be?"