Dec 20, 4:42 PM EST
NEW YORK (AP) -- Pfizer Inc. says it will immediately pull
advertising for its top-selling arthritis pain reliever Celebrex, whose
safety was called into question last week after a study found an
increased risk of heart attacks in patients taking high dosages of the
drug.
Pfizer spokesman Andy McCormick said the company was
suspending Celebrex ads in newspapers, radio, TV and magazines. He said
the company made the decision in discussions with the Food and Drug
Administration.
McCormick also said Pfizer plans to have its sales staff
meet with doctors to explain the findings of the survey, which were made
public on Friday. He said Pfizer plans to keep Celebrex on the market.
The FDA said Friday it was considering warning labels for
Celebrex or withdrawing the drug from the market. Celebrex is in the
same class of drug, called a cox-2 inhibitor, as Vioxx, a rival pain
reliever that Merck & Co. pulled from the market earlier this year after
a study found the drug doubled the risk of heart attack or stroke.
For the first nine months of the year, worldwide sales of
Celebrex more than doubled from a year earlier to $2.3 billion,
accounting for 6 percent of Pfizer's total sales of $37.6 billion during
that period.
Last year, Pfizer spent $87.6 million to advertise
Celebrex, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR. It recently launched
a new campaign for the drug and placed full-page ads in newspapers
touting Celebrex's safety in the wake of Vioxx's recall.
The heart attack risk in the study disclosed Friday
occurred when patients took the drug at two to four times the usual dose
for many months.
News of the increased heart risk for Celebrex patients
came in one of two long-term cancer-prevention trials.
On Monday, the FDA said it had asked Pfizer to suspend its
consumer advertising of Celebrex while the agency evaluates new and
conflicting information on the drug.
The National Cancer Institute, which was conducting the
study for Pfizer, said patients in the clinical trial taking 800
milligrams of Celebrex had a 3.4 times greater risk of cardiovascular
problems compared with a placebo.
For patients in the trial taking 400 milligrams of
Celebrex, the risk was 2.5 times greater. The average duration of
treatment in the trial was 33 months.
Pfizer's shares, which fell hard on Friday following the
release of the news, fell another $1.46, or 5.7 percent, to close at
$24.29 in heavy trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.
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