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November 25, 2009
Column explores reasons behind "aggressive" marketing campaign for aripiprazole.
The "Consumer Reports Insights" column, published by the Washington Post (11/24), reports that Bristol-Myers Squibb is conducting "an aggressive advertising campaign for its blockbuster antipsychotic...Abilify [aripiprazole]," a medication "originally approved for treating schizophrenia and...bipolar disorder," and now approved "as an add-on treatment for people with major depression."
Abilify, however, is "a member of a class of" medications "known as atypical...antipsychotics," medicines with "different -- and, in some cases, considerably more serious -- side effects than the most common class of drugs used to treat depression." Consumer Reports attributes promotion of "Abilify for depression because only a limited number of people have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder," whereas "depression...is a veritable cash cow among mental-health conditions."
Related Links:
- Nothing depressing in sales figures," Washington Post, November 24, 2009.
Posted by admin at November 25, 2009 04:56 PM