FDA & Prescription Drugs

• Unique Funding Program for Vioxx Attorneys

  Richard Schulte | November 16, 2007 4:03 PM | 0 CommentsDayton, OH

  Counsel Financial Services (CFS), the nation's largest provider of working capital credit lines exclusively to attorneys, announced today that it will provide loans to litigators representing Vioxx plaintiffs, in the wake of Merck & Co.'s recent announcement that it has established a $4.85 billion victim fund to settle thousands of lawsuits. Together with one of the largest financial...

• Avandia Linked to 42% Greater Risk of Heart Attack

  Richard Schulte | September 13, 2007 11:21 AM | 0 CommentsDayton, OH

  Users of Avandia, appear to be at increased risk for a heart attack or heart failure. Regulators should seriously consider whether the drug should be allowed to remain on the market.The pooled data from the trials indicated that Avandia, compared with controls, significantly increased the risk of heart attack by 42 percent (94 of 6,421 patients who received Avandia vs. 83 of 7,870 patients who...

• Vioxx class action rejected by top N.J. court

  Richard Schulte | September 07, 2007 1:46 PM | 0 CommentsDayton, OH

  New Jersey's Supreme Court yesterday rejected a class-action lawsuit against painkiller Vioxx maid by Merck & Co. The ruling is a huge legal victory for the drug maker, which faces nearly 27,000 individual lawsuits from people claiming Vioxx, once a widely used arthritis treatment, caused heart attacks and strokes.The state's highest court, reversing two lower-court decisions, ruled that a...

• Drug stents worse on heart attack victims

  Richard Schulte | September 04, 2007 1:17 PM | 0 CommentsDayton, OH

  Heart attack victims given drug-coated stents after an acute heart attack are nearly five times more likely to die six months to two years later than those with bare metal forms of the arterial scaffolding, research showed on Tuesday.Drug stents remain highly controversial in the cardiology community and fears about late stent thrombosis have led to a slump in sales in the past year.Eckhart...

• Strattera patent challenged

  Richard Schulte | August 29, 2007 1:53 PM | 0 CommentsDayton, OH

  The patent on hyperactivity-disorder drug Strattera is being challenged by Novartis AG's Sandoz unit. Novartis is seeking a pre-emptive ruling that its proposed generic version of Strattera won't infringe a Lilly patent that expires in 2017, or that the patent is invalid.Icelandic drugmaker Actavis Group hf is already being sued by Lilly to block a generic version of Strattera, which generated...

• Avandia Linked to Increased Heart Attack Risk

  Chrissie Cole | May 21, 2007 12:38 AM | 0 CommentsDayton, OH

  The FDA has issued a safety warning relating to the drug rosiglitazone maleate, marketed under the brand name Avandia. Safety data pooled from controlled clinical trials shows a significant increase in the risk of heart attack and heart related deaths in patients that use the drug Avandia, to help control type-2 diabetes.Other published data from long-term clinical trials of Avandia provide...