Product News and Recalls

Byetta manufacturer looking to get bigger share of diabetes market

Drug maker Eli Lilly is increasing its efforts to get a larger share of the diabetes market, Reuters reports.

The story says Lilly is now the fourth-largest diabetes drug manufacturer, with 10.6 percent market share. That puts it behind Denmark’s Novo Nordisk , France’s Sanofi and the U.S.A.’s Merck & Co.

Lilly is looking to change that position, with dozens of medications in development. Among them is the experimental once-weekly injection dulaglutide, ...

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Lipitor maker posts lower-than-expected earnings

Pfizer Inc. has posted lower-than-expected earnings and revenue for the first quarter, in part because of rapidly falling sales of the cholesterol drug Lipitor, Reuters reports.

Sales of the drug, formerly a cash cow for the pharmaceutical giant, plummeted 55 percent to $626 million.

The drug has been competing with cheaper generics since November. Recent health concerns about Lipitor have cropped up as well.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has added warnings ...

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Inspection prompts medicine recalls

Following an inspection by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a Florida specialty pharmacy called The Compounding Shop is recalling all of its sterile products, ABC News reports.

According to the story, FDA inspectors were concerned about sterility problems with company drugs that could lead to bacterial contamination. The agency advised health care professionals to keep drugs produced at the company away from patients.

The FDA investigation was part of a ...

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Cholesterol levels dropping, still problematic

The good news is that national cholesterol levels have dropped over the last four decades. The bad news is that they still represent a “significant public health problem,” according to the National Center for Health Statistics, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

KPCC Public Radio out of California says the NCHS report specifically refers to low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, which health providers often refer to as “bad ...

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British regulators warn about hip implants

A story in The Telegraph details the advice that British health regulators are providing for U.K. residents who received a “metal-on-metal” hip implant, in light of recent findings that up to half of the devices fail within six years.

Friction between the metal surfacing on both the implants’ ball and cup causes tiny filings of cobalt and chromium to break off. According to the story, that toxic debris “can seep into ...

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Johnson & Johnson shareholders unhappy with management

A story in the Washington Post says that several Johnson & Johnson shareholders spoke of their dissatisfaction with the company during their annual meeting recently. Their complaints focused on a long string of product recalls, ethical lapses and excessive executive pay.

In 2010, the company’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit recalled more than 280 million packages of over-the-counter medications, which included Motrin, children’s Tylenol liquid and Benadryl.

Also in 2010, Johnson & Johnson’s ...

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