Menopause

Wyeth to slash another 1,200 jobs

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:59:58 -0400

And the ax is falling again. Wyeth notified employees last Friday than another 1,200 jobs will be slashed from the payroll. That's on top of the 1,240 sales jobs slated for elimination last month.

The cutbacks are part of "Project Impact," a restructuring plan Wyeth hopes will help it grapple with impending generic competition and FDA-approval setbacks. Blockbuster heartburn treatment Protonix has already been losing to generic competition, so much so that the company introduced its own generic version. In 2007, the FDA declined to approve Wyeth's osteoporosis candidate bazedoxifene (Viviant) and its schizophrenia med bifeprunox. Though Wyeth finally got its Effexor replacement Pristiq approved for depression, it was sent back to the drawing board on an indication for menopause.

- see the news at Pharmalot

Jury fines Wyeth $134.5M in hormone suit

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 06:59:56 -0400

A Nevada jury didn't buy Wyeth's defense of its menopause drugs Premarin and Prempro. It awarded $134.5 million in compensation to three women who claimed the drugs caused their breast cancer. And this is far from the only lawsuit over the hormone replacement drugs; some 5,400 similar complaints are pending across the country. And that figure doesn't include possible punitive damages; that phase of the trial comes next.

Twenty similar cases have already been resolved: three in favor of the company, three dismissed on summary judgment, two in favor of the plaintiffs (but jury awards were set aside by the courts), and 12 others withdrawn by the plaintiffs before trial. No word on how many of those--if any--included monetary settlements from the company.

- read the Boston Globe article

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Novartis' Reclast gets FDA blessing

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:59:57 -0400

Score one for Novartis. Its once-yearly treatment for post-menopausal osteoporosis, Reclast, now has the FDA's blessing. Already approved in the U.S. and E.U. for treatment of Paget's bone disease, the drug is expected to win approval in Europe within three months.

It's a big deal for the drug maker: Analysts expect sales of Reclast to reach $1 billion in sales. As a once-yearly treatment, it doesn't have to be taken every day as other osteoporosis remedies do, and a three-year trial showed a 70 percent decrease in certain types of fractures due to the disease. With the Baby Boom in menopausal territory, the drug has a huge potential market.

- see this press release
- read the AFX report for more

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Novartis pays big for roster of new vaccines. Report