Pfizer Gets Tougher Warning Label for Antibiotic After Deaths
Bloomberg News
May 26, 1999, 12:08 p.m. ET
Pfizer Gets Tougher Warning Label for Antibiotic After Deaths
New York, May 26 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc., the No. 2 U.S.
drugmaker, said its antibiotic Trovan will get a stricter warning
label in the U.S. and Europe because five people who took the
drug died and three needed liver transplants.
It is still unclear what role Trovan might have played in
these cases, said Andy McCormick, a Pfizer spokesman. Neither
U.S. nor European regulators will require that doctors perform
liver tests before starting patients on the drug, he said.
About 2.5 million prescriptions have been written for
Trovan, which won U.S. approval in December 1997. About 140 total
cases of liver injury have been reported in Trovan users,
McCormick said.
In a report, Merrill Lynch analyst Steven Tighe wrote that
there was underlying liver disease or use of other medications in
most of these cases. Tighe said he is maintaining his accumulate
rating on the stock.
Tighe also said he is evaluating his Trovan sales estimates
of $307 million for 1999 and $466 million for 2000 and may revise
them. Trovan sales were $160 million in 1998, its first year on
the market.
Pfizer, based in New York, rose 2 1/4 to 104 3/8 in midday
trading. Pfizer, which also makes the anti-impotence pill Viagra,
is second to Merck & Co. among U.S. drugmakers.
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