• Defective Drug Side Effects

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Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of rebates are being paid to physicians and dialysis centers each year in the U.S. by the pharmaceutical giants Amgen and Johnson & Johnson. The rebates are provided to doctors who choose to use the pharma companies’ anemia drugs: Procrit, Aranesp, and Epogen.

Although the rebate scheme is legal, critics have noted that the rebates likely give doctors an incentive to use more of the drugs than may be optimum for their patients’ health. The FDA released a report yesterday stating that these three drugs are often being used at dosages that are too high, and that the three may not be effective as treatment for some types of anemia.

Doctors Profit from Drug Choices

When a doctor or dialysis center chooses to buy one of the anemia drugs for a patient’s treatment, the drug’s maker gives the doctor or center a rebate. Medicare and many private insurers also provide a rebate for the same purchase. The doctor or dialysis center can actually make a significant profit based solely on the purchase of these and other medicines.

According to documents supplied to The New York Times, a cancer practice group of six physicians in the Pacific Northwest got $2.7 million from Amgen in 2006 alone for buying and prescribing $9 million worth of Epogen and Aranesp.

The FDA Is Finally Stepping In

An FDA advisory panel scheduled tomorrow will examine the issue of whether Procrit, Epogen, and Aranesp are being overused in U.S. dialysis patients, who are typically given doses of these drugs that are twice what European patients receive. In fact, since the three anemia drugs were released into the market in the early 1990s, the dosages at which they’re used in the U.S. have tripled.

Several clinical studies have indicated that the use of Procrit, Epogen, and Aranesp does not help improve patients’ quality of life or extend their survival, and that the drugs have severe potential side effects—including heart failure and death—when used at high doses. Approximately 50 percent of the dialysis patients in the U.S. are given doses that the FDA considers higher than the safe level.

(Source: San Diego Union Tribune)

Have you been treated with Procrit, Aranesp, or Epogen? Contact us to schedule a consultation with an experienced attorney.