QDIS Blog

Rimonabant and Type 2 Diabetes

by Ed Vawter @ 1:21 pm. Filed under Drug Development, Pharma News

Here’s more news on Acomplia (rimonabant) from Sanofi-Aventis.

Benefited Patients with Type 2 Diabetes by Improving Blood Sugar Control - FierceBiotech:

Recently released data showed that Rimonabant a cannabinoid type 1 (CB1) receptor blocker helped patients control their sugar levels. It should be noted that these were type 2 patients who were not undergoing other treatments. THe A1C levels(a long term measure of how well blood sugar is controlled) showed small but significant decreases when treated with 20 mg of Rimonabant per day.

It will be interesting to see where this goes since the FDA issued an approvable letter and Sanofi gave their response. There really isn’t much there just that they will work closely with the FDA on its future development.

My best guess is this won’t have any impact on the questions the FDA asked since this study was likely underway long before the Feb approvable letter from the FDA.

Technorati Tags: Acomplia, Rimonabant, Sanofi-Aventis

Email Ed Vawter

Sanofi Weight-Loss Pill Recommended for Approval by EMEA

Sanofi Not Giving Guidance on Acomplia

Rimonabant Update in the US

Bristol-Myers and AstraZeneca in $1 Billion Drug Pact

Rising Diabetes Threat and Reduced Budget

[

Print This Post ] [Email it!] [Comments (0)] [Permalink] [Trackback]

Pfizer Terminates Development on Cholesterol Drug

by Ed Vawter @ 11:43 am. Filed under Drug Development

I’m late in getting this out and everyone probably already knows about this but Pfizer announced that they will be discontinuing all development of its latest cholesterol drug Torcetrapib.

Pfizer scraps cholesterol drug:

It’s chemical structure is shown below.

Pfizer has been working on this for about 15 years and may have sank more then $800 million into its development. The latest trend in cholesterol treatment is to not only lower overall cholesterol but to increase the so called “good cholesterol” (HDL). THere are several companies looking into this in some way. One of these that I have mentioned previously is Niacin (vitamin B3). It was used quite a bite before the statin drugs but had the side effect of causing flushing. Now several companies including Merck are working on drugs that would block this flushing. The drug they are working on is called MK-0524.

MSD’s Investigational MK-0524 Significantly Reduced Flushing Caused By Extended-Release Niacin in Phase II Study: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

I found the structure in the literature and it is shown below.

Another article in Forbes talks a little more about Pfizer’s failure.

Behind Pfizer’s Failure - Forbes.com

They mention that this won’t sink Pfizer but it certainly will be painful. It will also be interesting to see how it shakes out with other companies working on similar drugs.

Other Resources

Yahoo! News Search Results for torcetrapib
torcetrapib - Google News
Google Blog Search: Torcetrapib

Technorati Tags: cholesterol, Pfizer, Torcetrapib

Email Ed Vawter

Abbott Labs To Buy Kos Pharma for $3.7 Billion

Is Aggressive Cholesterol Control Neccessary?

Pfizer to Cut 2,200 Marketing Jobs

More Companies Approved to Sell Generic Zocor (simvastatin)

Merck Revises Timeline for MK-0524B with Simvastatin