Glaxo to Pay $460 M to Resolve Avandia Lawsuits

(CBS)  Bloomberg reported Tuesday that GlaxoSmithKline, the company that makes the diabetes drug Avandia, has agreed to pay around $460 million to resolve most of the lawsuits alleging the drug causes strokes and heart attacks.

GlaxoSmithKline has faced more than 13,000 lawsuits alleging that Glaxo hid Avandia's heart-attack risk. The first Avandia trial is set for October in Philadelphia in federal court.

Read the Bloomberg story here.

An FDA panel met Tuesday to spend two days listening to more than 20 experts and sorting through 700 pages of data trying to determine whether Avandia causes heart attacks and deaths and should be pulled from the market, reports CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook.

GlaxoSmithKline official Dr. Murray Stewart told the committee their drug is safe "and should remain a treatment option for patients with type 2 Diabetes."

But other experts disagreed vehemently, saying the evidence clearly shows Avandia is dangerous.

The trustworthiness of the company was called into question when Senate investigators released documents Tuesday showing the company knew about problems 11 years ago but didn't make them public.

More on Avandia:

Will Avandia Be Pulled from the Market?
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Could Avandia Be Pulled?
Avandia Maker Hid Risks for Years, Probe Finds
Diabetes Drug to Get Second Look

[jasonwestonline]

Actually, Avandia issue is raising a question on trustworthiness of the company. However, nothing can be alleged in concrete until FDA releases its final report on this matter.

This is a great step taken by Glaxo to pay the Avandia Lawsuits.
http://avandiarecall.com/

[baileyccc]

Where are the comments?

[baileyccc]

Maybe just maybe a few smart consumers will learn that they should never take a new drug, only a tried and true synthetic poisons. posted by baileyccc

[myopinionpal]

Most drug makers know that their product are bad but the good folks at the FDA are promised very good salaries when they leave the FDA to approve a drug, and then years later after the drug makers have made billions and then the trouble starts with their drugs they get a token
drop in the bucket fine.

[Paul123z]

There are a few interesting related write-ups to this at the Skeptic's Health Journal club. Avandia and Earwax
http://healthjournalclub.blogspot.com/2010/02/avandia-and-earwax.html
provides the background of what the Senate funded investigation into Avandia found. David Graham and the tragedy of Vioxx parts I and II discuss in part I, some of the culture at FDA and in part II the specifics of what occured with the withdrawal of Vioxx. If anyone is interested those may be accessed here.
http://healthjournalclub.blogspot.com/search/label/Vioxx

Yes Avandia needs to be recalled, the risk/benefit ratio is not there for a me-too diabetes drug and how strange and sad that a senator had to use his own staff resources to research and bring attention to this issue, something FDA should have done on its own.