down it goes

I briefly commented last week on the implications of the study results indicating that Niaspan does more for patients' health than Zetia. Well, it looks like patients and doctors have noted those results and the tide is starting to swing in Niaspan's favor, meaning things are going from bad to worse for Zetia. Scripts for Zetia are reported to be down a fair amount since the study results came out, and there is no reason to expect that this trend will not continue. Merck better come up with a way to stop the bleeding or have a contingency plan in place to help make up ground that the once proud Zetia/Vytorin held...

Zetia down, out?

Next up, is this really news? The vaccine industry (as reported by Fierce Biotech) struggles to modernize the vaccine production process. Flu vaccines are the primary culprit, being made using the chicken egg method that is known to waste valuable time until the eggs produce adequate quantities of the vaccine. My question is: Why hasn't there been more formal progress on cell-based technologies that do show promise is most clinical trials? Almost every vaccine manufacturer has conducted trials on cell-based production technology, but there has been little to no regulatory progress on them yet.

Read the WSJ piece for yourself...

Finally, Pifzer's new Alzheimer's drug, Dimebon, is getting more press. Seems that a clinic in the UK thinks highly enough of the new drug to partner with Pfizer to conduct a 1,000 patient trial looking at the benefits of Dimebon paired with Aricept in patients with Alzheimers. If the previous study data is any indication, Pfizer will benefit from this trial to provide more fodder for marketing of the drug.

Read more from the BBC here