Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-24/diabetes-drug-actos-has-same-heart-risks-as-glaxo-s-avandia-study-finds.html
Takeda's Actos Has Same Heart Risks as Glaxo's Avandia, Researchers Find
By Kanoko Matsuyama - Aug 25, 2010 2:33 AM ET
Takeda Pharmaceuticals Actos diabetes pills. Photographer: JB Reed/ Bloomberg
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.’s diabetes drug Actos causes as many heart problems as Avandia, the GlaxoSmithKline Plc pill that had a decline in sales after being linked to higher heart-disease rates, a study found.
Patients taking Avandia or Actos were 4 percent more likely to experience heart attacks, heart failure or die, according to the study published yesterday in the American Heart Association journal, Circulation.
Actos become the market leader after a 2007 study showed a 43 percent higher chance of heart attacks from Avandia, which generated $3.3 billion of sales before the findings. The latest study, the first to compare the drugs, suggests the risks are tied to that category of medicine, said Jenny Gunton, a diabetes researcher at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research.
“It just maybe increases the worry of using either of the drugs,” Gunton, who wasn’t involved in the study, said in a telephone interview from Sydney. A rate of 4 percent is “pretty high” given the short study period, she said.
U.S. regulators are reviewing whether Avandia, which is classed as the same type of treatment as Actos, should be taken off the market after a panel advised on July 14 that warnings about its risks should be added to prescription information.
The study involved more than 36,000 diabetes patients with an average age of 54 years and took place over 33 months, including 14 months of treatment on either medication.
Among the patients, 602 who took Avandia and 599 Actos users suffered either a heart attack, heart failure, or both, or died, the study showed. There were 217 deaths in each group.
