E.D. Drugs Causing Amnesia?
There have always been some concerns about side-effects from drugs that treat erectile dysfunction or E.D. Some are sudden blood pressure drops, hearing loss, and some are erections lasting four hours or more. There are also other side-effects, but the newest may have a new twist: TEMPORARY AMNESIA!
A labeling approval change was approved this month from the FDA that will also list amnesia as one of the side-effects in many erectile dysfunction drugs from major pharmaceutical companies. While this is a rare condition, it is called “transient global amnesia.” Here are the companies with changes:
- Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) for Viagra
- Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) for Cialis.
After looking around the news and doing some back-dating, it looks like the FDA already made some label changes in Bayer’s Levitra, marketed in the U.S. by GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) and
Schering-Plough (NYSE: SGP). You can see the notes on WebMD here.
What is odd is that it is not even clear and doesn’t seem to have been proven that E.D. drugs are responsible for the temporary amnesia. As most E.D. users are older in age and/or because so much is tied to blockage, it might even be other issues entirely. Over that we can not speculate, or are last refraining from it. The drug companies haven’t said that there is a definite answer either.
Think of the good news though. This could become a great excuse builder in the world. Maybe the big head isn’t the big thinker for men after all. This might also be the best argument ever that two-fers are crucial so that you are sure to remember what you did.
“Honey, I know those pictures are proof I was caught cheating. But I can’t remember it!!!!!”
That’s about it, because any more might be inappropriate for a business site.
Have a good weekend, even you don’t remember it all.
JON C. OGG
AUGUST 22, 2008
Is Lilly’s Loss Really Others’ Gain? (LLY, PFE, BMY, SNE)
Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) is following the lead of Pfizer…. in need of a new breed of drugs, and with shares on the 52-week low list and on a multi-year low list.
The FDA has pushed back a decision regarding its anti-clotting blood thinner with its partner Daiichi Sankyo in Japan. Prasugrel is called EFFIENT and the drug had original been fast tracked at the FDA. But there are issues over excessive bleeding from the blood thinner, which means too much efficacy. While part of the problem may stem from the raw amount of data for the delay, you have to wonder if there will be some dosing issues with such large amounts of bleeding. We now won’t know until late September for the next potential FDA decision.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY) is up 2% at $20.10 late in the day and Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE: SNY) is up 1.7% at $32.75 as this puts off that much more time that Plavix will be the number one blood thinner on the market.
So far we have seen over 19,500 of the JUL08 $50 CALLS and over 25,400 of the JUL08 $45 PUTS in Lilly trade hands today.
If you want to know the size of the market up for grabs, we noted before that Bristol-Myers saw some $3.4 Billion in sales of Plavix in the first 9-months of 2007 alone.
Jon Ogg
June 24, 2008
Amylin Results Better Than Stock Performance? (AMLN, LLY, ALKS, NVO)
Last night we saw the long-awaited results from Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: AMLN), Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) and Alkermes Inc. (NASDAQ: ALKS) announce their results from their one-year open-label clinical study for a once/week Byetta treatment in type II diabetes in patients who are taking metformin but still don’t have their blood sugar under control.
The results showed that the durable efficacy sustained a similar improvement in their glucose control compared to those receiving treatment for 30 weeks. The results also showed that patients who switched from a BYETTA injection after 30 weeks to exenatide once weekly also experienced additional improvements in A1C and fasting plasma glucose.
Byetta has been on the market since 2005 and exenatide is not yet approved.
If you have watched Amylin over the last few days, it has been a tough patch for the stock as the diabetes competitor Novo-Nordisk AS (NYSE: NVO) results were far better than Wall Street was expecting. On Friday, shares were north of $32.00 and they closed down at $26.84 yesterday.
While there has been relatively thin volume with under 30,000 shares with 1 hour and 10 minutes to the open, shares are up marginally in pre-market trading but are also already off the highs. Unfortunately with an over an hour and a low-grade reaction to what seems like good news it is hard to see any major reaction so far.
Jon Ogg
June 10, 2008