US aims to tighten rules on direct-to-consumer drug ads

With a new Congress controlled by the Democratic Party, the US biotech industry might be facing tighter restrictions on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. This spring, Congress is set to debate measures that include a two-year moratorium on advertising for newly approved products and higher user fees for extra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) staff to monitor television, print and radio advertisements.

The US and New Zealand are the only countries that allow DTC drug advertising, and such ads pumped $4.5 billion into the US media economy in 2006, up from $2.8 billion in 2002, according to the drug and biotech industries.

However, over the past several years—and after the spectacular safety failure in 2004 of a heavily advertised and top-selling drug, the COX-2 inhibitor Vioxx (rofecoxib)—calls have grown louder for more government control.

"The ads have limited educational value and may oversell the benefits of drugs in ways that might conflict with promoting...health," says Dominick Frosch, assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In the January/February issue of the Annals of Family Medicine, Frosch and colleagues published an analysis of television drug ads, concluding that 95% of analyzed ads appealed to emotion and none mentioned lifestyle changes as an alternative to a pill.

Riding a bike in the desert: Flomax

Every male mammal will eventually present with symptoms of an enlarged prostate. Non cancerous prostate enlargement is termed benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and is a common chronic disease, with the incidence of BPH increasing with age.
This enlargement causes partial blockage of the urethra which impedes urinary output and and may lead to obstructive and irritative symptoms. It is caused by enlarged cells and cells that grow to compensate the enlarged cells within the prostate. The growing cells are called smooth muscle cells and have specific receptors on their cell surface that can regulate their rigidness, such that when these receptors are inhibited, they relax. This results in increased flow.

Flomax blocks these receptors and causes increased urinary flow by relaxing enlarged/proliferating smooth muscle cells within the prostate.

In the news today: Combo migraine drug beat single drug therapy

An experimental drug that combines two commonly used treatments helped quell migraine symptoms better than either one alone, a new U.S. study released Tuesday suggested.

The research, published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, tested experimental drug combination Trexima against either drug used alone.
Pozen Inc. is developing Trexima with British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline's. The drug combines Glaxo's popular migraine drug Imitrex -- known generically as sumatriptan -- with the older painkiller naproxen sodium.

The drug combo attacks different pathways in the brain believed to contribute to migraines, which affect more than 28 million people in the United States. Migraine symptoms include throbbing headache pain, nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light and sound.
The multibillion-dollar market for prescription migraine drugs is dominated by a class know as triptans, of which Glaxo's Imitrex is the most widely used.

Source: CNN

Something like this can get fast tracked by the FDA and in patient use in a very short time. If you suffer from migraines, this is good news.

I'm getting sick of seeing Dr. Jarvick

I've posted lipitor but here's a reference to that post.

see thursday march 1st...

Flomax coming shortly.......

Is chemotherapy right for you? Ask about Neulasta

This ad just amazes me. "ask your doctor if chemotherapy is right for you" is basically what this says. Just how many people even know anything about their disease except what they are told and even those dont know what drugs they are getting or how they work. Rant over.

Back to Neulasta. What is it indicated for and how does it work so we can all understand?

Neulasta is a genetically engineered human protein [it's grown in the laboratory] that is the exact same as a protein in our body call G-CSF, for granulocyte colony stimulating factor. Simply, it's a cocktail of growth factors that tells specific cells of your immune system to grow. These cells are the body's primary defense system against opportunistic infections that often occur in chemotherapy patients. This is important since most chemotherapy is not specific to cancer cells in the body. It simply kills all cells, leaving a person suspect to infection; thus how the drug protects and helps a person.