[PFE/MTC's Celebra] Painkillers Top 'Wonder Drugs' List
JUNE 16, 19:29 EDT
By JOHN HENDREN
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Drug makers, eyeing Viagra's runaway success
with profit envy, expect the drive for arthritis relief will yield the next wonder drug.
Some industry experts believe Celebra, a painkiller that cuts
inflammation but avoids the stomach-damaging effects of
aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen, could outsell the
impotency drug by millions of dollars a year.
Drug makers' ceaseless efforts to
stock America's medicine chest have long plowed
research money into trying to ease such ills as cancer,
obesity and chronic pain. But the road to a cancer cure
is littered with promising treatments that fizzled. And
last year's recall of two diet pills left many dieters wary
of weight-loss drugs.
Now comes a new class of super painkillers with a
singular advantage: They could be on pharmacy shelves
within months. And industry watchers believe millions
of Americans will gladly toss their bottles of common
painkillers for an alternative that saves their stomachs.
Kathryn Howe already has.
Rheumatoid arthritis left the 51-year-old executive
secretary's joints so swollen she couldn't type or take
long walks. Rolling over in bed hurt.
She kept the swelling under control with
prescription-strength versions of drugs such as Tylenol
and Advil. But 15 years of them left her with an
inflamed stomach and rectal bleeding. Last year, her
doctor asked her to test an unapproved drug called
Celebra. Now she walks, swims, does low-impact
aerobics and even lifts weights comfortably with no
apparent side effects.
''A person can shake my hand and I'm not in pain,''
the Eastlake, Ohio, resident said. ''I can hold a
pencil.''
Some analysts predict Celebra will outsell Viagra, the
lucrative Pfizer Inc. impotency treatment that became
the fastest-selling drug in history its first month.
''That's what I would put my finger on as the next
blockbuster drug, not only in terms of medicinal value
but in terms of cult following,'' said Stephen Tang, a
drug industry specialist with A.T. Kearney, a
management consulting firm in New York.
Typical estimates call for annual Viagra sales to reach
$3 billion by 2002. Celebra sales could eventually top
$4 billion, said Salomon Smith Barney analyst Christina
Heuer.
With the global market for prescription painkillers, not
including over-the-counter sales, at $5 billion, Ms.
Heuer predicts Celebra could be ''the most significant
new drug introduction of 1999.''
Celebra is expected to be the first out of the blocks
from a new class of drugs called cox-2 inhibitors, so
named because they block the inflammatory enzyme
cyclooxygenase. Aspirin and similar anti-inflammatory
drugs do that too, but they go too far, also blocking
the cox-1 enzyme that protects the stomach lining.
Doctors believe the new class of painkillers may also
provide a significant side benefit. Patients are more
likely to get better faster, or improve more profoundly,
if they're willing to take their medicine and stay on it.
When Mrs. Howe was prescribed standard
anti-inflammatory drugs that hurt her stomach, she
conceded, ''I wasn't a very compliant patient.''
Celebra's manufacturer, Monsanto Corp.'s Searle unit,
is expected to ask the Food and Drug Administration
for an expedited six-month review by September. If
that happens, the drug could be on the market by early
next year in the United States and late 1999 abroad.
Having tested Celebra's effects on rheumatoid arthritis,
osteoarthritis and dental pain, scientists are now
researching signs that Celebra might help prevent colon
cancer and Alzheimer's disease, in which cox-2 is
believed to play a role.
If it is approved for rheumatoid arthritis, the most
severe joint disease, doctors would be free to prescribe
it for a number of painful conditions.
Searle will have to move quickly. Merck & Co. is about
six months behind in developing a rival painkiller
named Vioxx. Glaxo Wellcome PLC, Johnson & Johnson
and Roche Laboratories also have cox-2 drugs on the
way. Already Merck and Searle are entangled in a legal
battle over patents.
Monsanto, Searle's parent, has agreed to be acquired
by American Home Products Corp., but the new owner
won't be marketing Celebra. Searle signed up Pfizer for
that agreeable task long before the acquisition.
Whoever handles it, Wall Street appears to be betting
on Celebra.
''Cox-2, that's potentially the next big blockbuster,
and I think Monsanto and Pfizer have the upper hand,''
said Hemant K. Shah, an independent drug industry
analyst in Warren, N.J. ''The first product always has
the advantage.''
Prozac's $2.6 billion in worldwide sales, for instance,
makes it the best-selling antidepressant years after
similar rivals - Pfizer's Zoloft, Glaxo's Wellbutrin,
SmithKline Beecham's Paxil - came on the market.
In addition to the cox-2 class, Wall Street analysts
recognize several candidates as wild-card contenders in
the race for the next wonder drug:
- Pfizer's antibiotic Trovan. Ms. Heuer estimates the
drug could bring in $1.5 billion in 2002, matching 1997
sales of SmithKline's top-selling antibiotic Augmentin.
- Avandia, an oral diabetes drug by SmithKline.
Analysts say it could become a blockbuster if it lacks
the side effects of Warner-Lambert's Rezulin, which
was pulled from the market in the United Kingdom
after a few patients suffered liver failure.
-Leptin, Amgen Inc.'s weight-loss hormone. Some
patients lost 35 pounds in six months, but doctors
remain wary of obesity drugs since last August's recall
of the diet pills fenfluramine - one half of the popular
fen-phen drug cocktail - and Redux. Knoll
Pharmaceuticals' new diet pill, Meridia, drew a
lackluster 11,185 prescriptions last month, according to
researcher IMS Health. Leptin is also being tested on
diabetes patients.
But even blockbusters will have a hard time topping
Viagra, with an unprecedented 1.7 million prescriptions
in three months.
''There's never been a drug like this so far in the
history of the business,'' said Joseph P. Riccardo, a
drug industry analyst at Bear Stearns & Co. in New
York. |
