Advantages and Disadvantages Of Nexium
AstraZeneca is
presently heavily promoting Nexium as the next
big thing, spending millions of dollars on on-air
ad campaigns for it. However, if looked at closely
there is no real distinct advantage of taking
Nexium of over, say AstraZeneca’s own
acidity relief drug Prilosec, which prior to
its patent expiration was one of the biggest
selling drugs in the world.
In fact both Nexium and Prilosec
belong to the same class of drugs known as Proton
Pump Inhibitors (PPIs). The only difference
between the two drugs is that while the active
ingredient in Prilosec is omeprazole; the active
ingredient in Nexium is esomeprazole.
Omeprazole is a proton pump inhibitor
that has been used for a long time to treat
ulcers and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)
by reducing acidity levels in the stomach. A
20mg tablet of omeprazole contains about 10mg
of S-omeprazole and 10mg of its mirror molecule:
R-omeprazole.
Both S and R-omeprazole are converted
to the same active drug that reduces gastric
acid production by proton pumps. Esomeprazole
is just a different spelling for S-omeprazole;
‘Es’ – ‘S’.
The difference between omeprazole
and esomeprazole is very slight, and there is
a difference in their chemical composition,
this is why it has been given a patent protection
under its new name. However, there is no significantly
proven clinically efficiency or advantage of
Nexium over other proton pump inhibitors.
Background Information
In 2000, Prilosec was the world's largest selling
prescription drug, accounting for 39% of AstraZeneca's
revenues. Patent protection for Prilosec expired
in 2001. As the patent protection ended, equally
effective generic competitors entered into the
PPI market and introduced less inexpensive drugs,
causing substantial revenue losses for AstraZeneca.
Understanding this, the company
began a massive advertising campaign for Nexium,
another one of its PPI drugs. This introduction
and intense promotion of Nexium into the PPI
market allowed AstraZeneca to prevent revenue
losses to generic competition, and though in
2003, revenues from Prilosec diminished to under
a billion dollars, Nexium sales exceeded $3.3
billion.
PAL Lawsuit
In October last year, Prescription Access Litigation
(PAL), a national advocacy organization for
making prescriptions drugs more affordable,
filed a lawsuit against AstraZeneca alleging
that despite knowing that Nexium offered no
substantial advantage over Prilosec, AstraZeneca
engaged in a fraudulent campaign to switch consumers
from Prilosec to Nexium.
The lawsuit alleges
that AstraZeneca unlawfully extended its hold
on the brand name PPI market by
- Commencing baseless patent
infringement litigation against potential generic
competitors,
- Conducting misleading
studies to support claims of the benefits of
Nexium over Prilosec,
- Engaging in unfair and
deceptive marketing and promotional tactics,
and
- Engaging in improper pricing
practices to induce drug purchasers to switch
from Prilosec to Nexium.
|
