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After a prominent cardiologist Garret FitzGerald reported a pooled analysis of clinical trial results showed patients taking Pfizer''s Bextra arthritis drug were twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke as those taking a placebo, Pfizer fired back, defending Bextra. The cardiologist said at a press briefing at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association that an analysis showed Bextra risk to be higher than Merck''s recently recalled arthritis drug Vioxx. Vioxx was recalled after studies showed patients were twice as likely to suffer heart attack and stroke after 18 months of use.
Bextra belongs to the same class of cox-2 inhibitor drugs as Vioxx and Pfizer''s other rival drug Celebrex. Pfizer claims the report drew “unsubstantiated conclusions”. An analyst at World Markets Research thinks Bextra''s future has been shot down after the Bextra findings were made public. FitzGerald said he will submit the results to a medical journal and it will be published. He added he would like the FDA to carefully look at the entire class of drugs, which now only includes Pfizer''s Bextra and Celebrex following the Vioxx recall.