Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. (4502.TO) plans to launch print ads Friday touting the safety of its diabetes drug Actos, just days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration slapped new safety warnings on rival drug Avandia, from GlaxoSmithKline plc. (GSK).
Full-page ads set to run in about 60 newspapers and in several news magazines in the U.S. tell patients: "If you have type 2 diabetes, Actos has been shown to lower blood sugar without increasing your risk of having a heart attack or stroke," according to a copy of the ad provided by Takeda.
The FDA handed Takeda this marketing edge Wednesday, when it forced Glaxo to add a new warning to Avandia's prescribing label about potential heart attack risks for patients taking the drug. The FDA also said it would ask makers of other diabetes drugs, including Takeda, to note in their labels that their drugs haven't been proven to reduce cardiovascular risk.
Takeda, based in Japan, has tried to turn that into an advantage in the ads, telling consumers that Actos at least doesn't increase their risk of having a heart attack or stroke. The ad notes that a "major study" showed that Actos did not increase this risk in patients.
Shay Weisbrich, general manager of diabetes marketing at Takeda, said the company is concerned that the Avandia controversy has scared some patients off oral diabetes drugs altogether. "The more media there is out there, the more confusing it is for patients. We designed (the ads) to cut through that and provide some clarity," she said.
Some doctors have been switching their patients to Actos from Avandia in recent months, as concerns about Avandia's safety have mounted. Avandia's troubles began in May, when a prominent cardiologist published a study saying that patients taking Avandia had a higher chance of suffering a heart attack than those taking placebo or other oral diabetes medications. Glaxo has always maintained that Avandia is as safe for the heart as other oral diabetes drugs.
Actos is the only other marketed drug that works in the same way as Avandia. Before concerns about Avandia surfaced, the two drugs' sales were running neck and neck in the U.S. By midsummer, Actos sales were soaring while Avandia sales were plummeting. Ms. Weisbrich declined to say how Actos is selling currently.
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