{"id":107473,"date":"2014-02-07T11:17:55","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T11:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=107473"},"modified":"2014-02-07T18:41:34","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T18:41:34","slug":"profitable-diseases-big-pharma-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/profitable-diseases-big-pharma-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"The most profitable diseases for big pharma in 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martha Rosenberg\u00a0<\/strong>
\nRINF Alternative News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of us have our guard up when it comes to direct-to-consumer drug advertising. We know the butterflies, sunsets and puppies in the TV ads are designed to distract us from words like \u201cblood clot\u201d, \u201cheart attack\u201d, \u201cstroke\u201d, \u201cseizure\u201d, \u201clife-threatening allergic reaction\u201d and \u201cdeath.\u201d We are aware that more than half the ads tells us why we\u00a0don\u2019t<\/i>\u00a0want to ask our doctor about the new wonder drug.<\/p>\n

Unbranded advertising, however, is much more insidious. Instead of selling a drug, it sells the\u00a0disease<\/i>\u00a0driving the drug sales and sometimes doesn\u2019t mention the drug at all.<\/p>\n

Unbranded advertising often appears to be from the CDC and can even run free as a public service announcement thanks to its apparently altruistic message. The hallmark of unbranded advertising is it calls the disease it is hawking (whether depression, bipolar disorder or restless legs) \u201cunder diagnosed,\u201d and \u201cunderreported\u201d and cites \u201cbarriers\u201d and \u201cstigmas to treatment\u201d which of course means sales. Sometimes it calls the disease a \u201csilent killer\u201d to scare people who think they\u2019re fine. (Before drug advertising it was the opposite: the medical establishment said you were\u00a0probably fine<\/i>despite how you felt.)<\/p>\n

Do You Have Non-24 Hour Sleep Wake Disorder?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t see me because of radio\u2026 and I can\u2019t see you because I\u2019m\u00a0totally blind<\/i>.\u201d So begins a high saturation radio campaign that launched late last year to boost \u201cawareness\u201d of an obscure circadian rhythm disorder called Non-24 Hour Sleep Wake Disorder in typical unbranded drug marketing fashion. How obscure is Non-24? There are only 146 citations for the disorder in the\u00a0entire US National Library of Medicine<\/i>. By comparison, there are 8,463 citations for the plague.<\/p>\n

The narrator says his blindness doesn\u2019t \u201chold me back\u201d but he often \u201cstruggles to keep up\u201d because he is not \u201csleeping through the night.\u201d He then says, \u201cSound familiar? You\u2019re not alone!\u201d The ads are from the Washington, DC-based drug company Vanda whose drug candidate for people who are blind and have Non-24, Hetlioz, received an FDA Advisory Committee\u00a0recommendation<\/a>\u00a0for approval in January which means the FDA will likely approve it. Hetlioz is said to be chemically related to the sleeping pill\u00a0marketed as Rozerem<\/a>\u00a0(Ramelteon).<\/p>\n

Of course the development of \u201corphan drugs\u201d that treat such a small part of the population (like the blind) they are not commercially viable is laudable. But orphan drugs are not usually accompanied by multi-million dollar ad campaigns and\u00a0slick websites<\/a>. (Nor are important messages for the blind usually on the Web.) Is there something disingenuous going on? For example, under \u201cCould You Have Non-24?\u201d on the site, it says \u201cThe key symptoms of Non-24 are the inability to sleep or stay asleep and a powerful urge to sleep during the day\u201d with no mention of blindness. A longer list on the site mentions waking up \u201cgroggy,\u201d being \u201cless productive than usual at work or at school,\u201d relationships that \u201care strained,\u201d \u201csluggishness and forgetfulness,\u201d mood that is \u201caffected\u201d and frustration \u201cbecause no one seems to understand what you\u2019re going through,\u201d and also doesn\u2019t mention blindness.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to be a cynic to wonder if the new disease\u2014and the drug that will treat it if approved\u2014 is actually being marketed to the hundreds of millions of adults with sleep problems. When I called the phone number and asked the \u201chealth educator\u201d if I could have Non-24 even though I am not blind, I was told \u201cyou don\u2019t have to be blind to have Non-24\u00e2\u20ac\u00b3 though it is more common in blind people. When I asked if there was a pill I could take if I had symptoms, my educator said he was unable to answer that because, \u201cI am not a doctor,\u201d be promised to send me more information.<\/p>\n

Getting a pill approved by the FDA so it can be legally sold and then widening its apparent uses through ad campaigns is called off-label marketing and it is strictly illegal. Since the lab tests and clinical trials that would establish safety for a new condition haven\u2019t been done, patients are guinea pigs. Almost all recent major settlements with drug companies revolve around off-label marketing of drugs including\u00a0Johnson & Johnson\u2019s Risperdal<\/a>, Bristol-Myers Squibb\u2019s Abilify,\u00a0Eli Lilly\u2019s Zyprexa,<\/a>\u00a0GlaxoSmithKline\u2019s Paxil, Pfizer\u2019s Neurontin, Bextra, Geodon and Lyrica, AstraZeneca\u2019s Seroquel, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen\u2019s Topamax, Forest Laboratories\u2019 Celexa and Lexapro andAbbott\u2019s Depakote.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c15,000 elderly people in nursing homes [are] dying each year from the off-label use of antipsychotic medications,\u201d\u00a0testi\u00ef\u00ac\u0081ed FDA<\/a>\u00a0drug reviewer David Graham, MD, during congressional hearings, adding that Pharma is \u201claughing all the way to the bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Selling the \u201cdisease\u201d of Non-24 is reminiscent of the campaign to sell Shift Work Sleep Disorder two years ago. \u201cDo you work a nontraditional work schedule?\u201d asked the ads for Cephalon\u2019s\u00a0stimulant Nuvigil\u00a0<\/a>. \u201cDo you struggle to stay awake?\u201d You may be suffering from Shift Work Sleep Disorder! Soon there was an unbranded website called the Wake-Up Squad to sell the disease without ever mentioning the drug. The Wake-Up Squad is \u201con a mission to lead the fight against Shift Work Disorder,\u201d it announced, offering facts and myths about the disease and a big red headline that asked \u201cAre You At Risk?\u201d<\/p>\n

Both the hypothyroidism and Non-24 unbranded ad campaigns are so general, they apply to almost everyone. They bring us closer to what comedian Chris Rock predicted drug advertising would become, in a TV special: \u201cDo you fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning? You may be suffering from\u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n

Do You Have Undiagnosed Hypothyroidism?<\/b><\/p>\n

From Joan Lunden and Mike Piazza who sold Claritin to Dorothy Hamill and Bruce Jenner who sold Vioxx, celebrity drug advertising is often phenomenally successful. No wonder the drug company AbbVie has selected actress Sofia Vergara to lead its hypothyroidism campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmmy-nominated actress Sofia Vergara<\/a>\u00a0is helping to raise awareness about the importance of diagnosing and treating hypothyroidism,\u201d read a press release last spring, \u201ca thyroid condition that affects millions of Americans.\u201d Her campaign, called \u201cFollow the Script,\u201d funded by AbbVie, \u201caims to educate individuals with hypothyroidism about the importance of being consistent with the treatment their doctor prescribes, and provides a \u2018script\u2019 to ensure they consistently receive the medication prescribed by their doctor when they visit the pharmacy.\u201d Ka-ching.<\/p>\n

While hypothyroidism certainly exists (as do other kinds of thyroid disorders) Vergara\u2019s campaign capitalizes on the gray areas in its diagnosis and the well-documented human tendency to self-diagnosis, by planting fear and doubt. For example, the AbbVie press release says, \u201cThyroid conditions affect an estimated 30 million individuals in the U.S.\u201d and \u201cone in every eight women will develop a thyroid condition in her lifetime.\u201d Yet Harvard Health Publications at Harvard Medical School places the figure at\u00a012 million.<\/a><\/p>\n

Commensurate with unbranded advertising a.k.a. \u201cdisease mongering\u201d Vergara\u2019s \u201cFollow the Script\u201d campaign website\u00a0features<\/a>\u00a0\u201cinteractive polls, symptom and treatment information,\u201d \u201cstories and videos from other individuals with hypothyroidism,\u201d and a chance for visitors to \u201cshare their own experiences.\u201d In classic unbranded pill marketing, the site also provides \u201chelpful \u2018scripts\u2019 for speaking with your doctor and pharmacist\u201d\u2014so patients don\u2019t go all the way to the doctor and fail to ring the cash register.<\/p>\n

AbbVie was formed in early 2013 when Abbott, located near Chicago, split into two companies, with AbbVie to concentrate on the blockbuster Humira, which made it $2 billion in\u00a0one quarter<\/i><\/a>\u00a0of 2013. But Synthroid, the thyroid supplement drug behind Vergara\u2019s campaign, enjoyed almost 25 percent growth last year and accounted for $153 million during the same quarter. Synthroid is the nation\u2019s leading thyroid supplement drug despite going off patent decade ago, because it is\u00a0widely perceived<\/a>\u00a0as more stable than competitor and generic versions of the drug.<\/p>\n

Lest no potential customers miss the fact that hypothyroidism is an under diagnosed, underreported major health problem with barriers and stigmas to treatment, a \u201cNational Academy of Hypothyroidism\u201d also now exists. The first thing visitors to the site will see is a slide of an overweight women on a scale with the brazen headline \u201cIs Your Thyroid Making You Fat\u201d? Visitors will also learn that hypothyroidism could be causing their stress, depression and chronic pain just as lack of hormones or antidepressants caused them ten years ago. There is even a perk for sufferers of hypothyroidism. The Academy tells them how to apply for\u00a0disability benefits<\/a>\u00a0for their hypothyroidism. Just trying to help!<\/p>\n

Martha Rosenberg is a columnist\/cartoonist who writes about public health. Her first book, titled\u00a0Born with a Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp the Public Health<\/a>, has just been released by Prometheus Books. She can be reached at:martharosenberg@sbcglobal.net<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Martha Rosenberg\u00a0 RINF Alternative News Most of us have our guard up when it comes to direct-to-consumer drug advertising. We know the butterflies, sunsets and puppies in the TV ads are designed to distract us from words like \u201cblood clot\u201d, \u201cheart attack\u201d, \u201cstroke\u201d, \u201cseizure\u201d, \u201clife-threatening allergic reaction\u201d and \u201cdeath.\u201d We are aware that more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-107473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}