One of the most expensive failures in the pharmaceutical industry
Oct/19/2007 06:41 Filed in: Pharma
Business
Dr. Joel Zonszein, a diabetes specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and a longtime skeptic about Exubera, said that the problems that bedeviled Exubera would probably plague other inhaled insulin treatments under development. Inhaled insulin is “just not a practical way to treat this population,” Dr. Zonszein said. Yes Pfizer probably did a lot of research on the use of inhaled insulin but market research does not guarantee success it is only one branch in the tree of risk management and a way for marketers to cover their asses.
Exubera’s sales were only $12 million during the first nine months of 2007, the company said. And despite heavy promotion this summer, the drug had less than 0.3 percent of the market for insulin, according to the A.G. Edwards brokerage firm. Even a few months ago, with Exubera’s sales lagging badly, Pfizer insisted that it still believed that the drug could reach blockbuster status. And for much of this year, Pfizer has heavily promoted Exubera to physicians and patients.
But Exubera was not able to overcome questions about its safety, efficacy, convenience and cost. These issues were all over the Web in consumer generate media. Why Pfizer did not reach out to these people is beyond me. While it was not the sole reason for the failure the Internet buzz was, this author believes, a major contributor.
Clinical trials showed that Exubera marginally decreased patients’ breathing ability, although Pfizer said the declines reversed if patients stopped taking the drug. Further, regulators required that patients take a lung function test before starting on Exubera, and another test after taking it for six months. The tests were an inconvenience for patients and for busy doctors. Physicians also said that they worried about the possibility that patients would receive more — or less — insulin than they expected because of the natural day-to-day variability of lung function. Too little insulin can lead to uncontrolled high blood sugar, while too much can produce hypoglycemic shock.
In addition, the needles that are used to inject insulin have shrunk over the last two decades, making injections less painful. The size of the Exubera inhaler, variously described as looking like a tennis can or a bong for smoking marijuana, was also an obstacle.
Next up for Pfizer is word of more job cuts I'm sure.
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