A Measure of Vindication for Wyeth

Unfortunately I just don't trust studies that seem to back a pharmaceutical company who has been trying to get the FDA to remove natural (bio-identical) hormones from being purchased without a prescription. These pharmaceutical giants have a lot of pull and it wouldn't be the first time that a study was skewed in their favor. While, seemingly, the WHI study now says that using synthetic hormones after menopause will not cause heart concerns, the biggest concern, like is said below, is the breast cancer issue. Our body does not get sick from a lack of pharmaceutical drugs.

It is concerning that the sales of synthetic hormones seem to be on the incline, if we can believe the figures. Most women are already on toxic over-load from all the chemicals in our food and water, not to mention the estrogenic effects from plastics and the environment. I suspect that since Wyeth was slapped in the face with the first results of the WHI, they have talked doctors into carrying on their mantra of "all you need is some estrogen and you will feel fine" by one-on-one contact with their patients.

Somehow, I just don't think that God intended that horse urine would help women with hormonal imbalance without causing other health concerns. But then Big Pharma usually thinks they know more than God.

by Jacob Goldstein - Wall Street Journal

All along, drug maker Wyeth has been the Big Pharma face of hormone replacement therapy. The companys drug Prempro, a combination of estrogen and progestin, was used in one arm of the large study known as WHI that was halted because the drug increased the risk of heart attacks. The findings, published in 2002, rang a loud alarm over use of the drugs to ease the symptoms of menopause.

The WHI report crushed what had been the cornerstone of Wyeths pharmaceutical franchise. Even with a recent rebound, sales of Premarin, an estrogen-only pill, and Prempro are a far cry from their peak before the first results of the WHI study came out. In 2001, sales of the drugs topped $2.07 billion. By 2003, sales had fallen to $1.28 billion and declined in later years to less than $1 billion annually.

Still, Wyeth stood by the medicines. And demand has begun to creep up. World-wide sales of Premarin and Prempro medicines were $1.05 billion last year, a 16% increase from $909 million in 2005. Sales of Prempro alone were $239 million in 2006, down 1% from $242 million the year before.

Today, Wyeth said in a statement that the results should be reassuring about heart-attack risks for newly menopausal women.

So what does the new finding that HRT does not appear to raise the risk of heart disease for women in their 50s mean for the company? We asked Tara Parker-Pope, the Journals HRT maven, and author of the recently published book The Hormone Decision.

Here Is what she told us:

What is tricky here for Wyeth is that even if the pendulum is starting to swing back in favor of hormones, there remains a bit of a backlash against Premarin and Prempro. Both are made from horse urine, and a lot of women just do not want that. And Suzanne Somers crusade in favor of bioidentical hormones, custom-mixed hormones made from plants, has really had an effect on womens thinking.

In general, this latest finding is good news for Wyeth. It may be that finally the company does not have to hide from the Womens Health Initiative anymore; it can proudly declare that its products are the most-studied hormone drugs in history and now the government is saying that for most women who use them they are safe. After all, this latest data showed that 50 to 59 year old women had a 30% lower risk of dying if they used Premarin or Prempro and that finding was statistically significant. Wyeth has stayed the course amidst all its hormone troubles, but now I think the question is whether they can leverage this into better sales.

The biggest stumbling block may be the breast cancer issue. Most of the litigation over Prempro does not have to do with heart health, but instead relates to breast cancer. That is a harder battle to fight, because the data do show a link between combination hormone use and a slightly higher risk for breast cancer.