"Glaxo Wins Approval for New AIDS Drug Despite Serious Risks"
Wall Street Journal (12/21/98) P. B8
Glaxo Wellcome's newest AIDS drug, Ziagen, was approved for
marketing by the Food and Drug Administration Thursday, even
though clinical trials showed that about 5 percent of patients
experienced significant, and in some cases, fatal side effects,
including fever, nausea, abdominal pain, low blood pressure, and
an enlarged liver. Despite the potential drawbacks, the FDA
approved Ziagen because it is used to treat a life-threatening
disease and may allow some patients to discontinue the use of
drug "cocktails" that are the standard in AIDS treatment today.
While many patients currently take as many as 20 pills a day,
patients who can tolerate Ziagen in combination with another AIDS
drug, such as Glaxo's Combivir, would have to only take about
four pills a day. Ziagen, a nucleoside analogue reverse
transcriptase inhibitor, is the fourth AIDS drug Glaxo has
developed. |
