LANTUS Users -- Do Not Panic Until More Information Is Known
Posted Jun 27 2009 10:17pm
As usual, my earliest "alert" comes from the financial pages:
Concern over Lantus was stoked by Ralph DeFronzo, a diabetes researcher at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center, on a June 11 conference call sponsored by Credit Suisse, UBS analysts said yesterday. He predicted an “earthquake” event that might prompt doctors to not “feel so comfortable with glargine” insulin, according to a transcript of the call. Glargine is a chemical name for Lantus. He didn’t provide details.
DeFronzo didn’t return calls yesterday and today to his office in San Antonio. An assistant said DeFronzo was out of the country and not reachable.
Clinical studies covering more than 70,000 patients as well as research since the drug went on the market “confirm the safety profile of Lantus,” Sanofi said yesterday.
“The clinical evidence in our possession shows the efficacy and the tolerance of Lantus,”Geoffroy Bessaud, a Sanofi spokesman, said by telephone today. “At this stage it is impossible for us to comment further in the absence of data on which the rumors are based.”
As usual, there is mis-information when an "expert" stock market analyst is concerned:
Studies of U.K. patients to be published “in major medical journals may well identify an increased risk of cancer in Lantus-treated patients,” Baum wrote in a report today. He wasn’t available for further comment.
The two excerpts above come from the firstBloomberg.com article on the subject. A Bloomberg update on the story raises great suspicion regarding the statement made by the "expert" market analyst (Baum) by stating:
The Scottish study showed a non-significant increased risk of breast cancer, while the U.K. study found no link between Lantus and cancer, the group said.
Sanofi-Aventis confirms the safety of LANTUS inthis article. However, based on our experience with many past "financial page articles", does this one also contain very significant mis-information?
Finally, wouldn't you like to have a better understanding of why .... -- DeFronzo drops his bomb on June 11, but we hear this 2 weeks later? -- DeFronzo is conveniently unavailable for further comments?
In another situation that started out like this, and smeared another drug, we see a reversal in an article entitled Research Disputes FDA Claim That Exenatide Increases Risk of Acute Pancreatitis. Wouldn't we like to have all that time lost in our office spent dealing with the questions and anxiety this initial report instigated? You betcha!
As usual, there is mis-information when an "expert" stock market analyst is concerned:
The two excerpts above come from the firstBloomberg.com article on the subject.
A Bloomberg update on the story raises great suspicion regarding the statement made by the "expert" market analyst (Baum) by stating:
Sanofi-Aventis confirms the safety of LANTUS inthis article. However, based on our experience with many past "financial page articles", does this one also contain very significant mis-information?
Finally, wouldn't you like to have a better understanding of why ....
-- DeFronzo drops his bomb on June 11, but we hear this 2 weeks later?
-- DeFronzo is conveniently unavailable for further comments?
In another situation that started out like this, and smeared another drug, we see a reversal in an article entitled Research Disputes FDA Claim That Exenatide Increases Risk of Acute Pancreatitis. Wouldn't we like to have all that time lost in our office spent dealing with the questions and anxiety this initial report instigated? You betcha!