Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Eric Topol says the new heart failure Natrecor (generic name nesiritide) is being aggressively marketed to physicians despite increasing concerns about the drug's possible links to kidney failure and death. "It's a pattern," Topol is quoted as saying. "We saw it with Vioxx and some of the cox-2 inhibitor drugs and we're seeing it now with Natrecor."
Another cardiologist is quoted saying, "(Natrecor) hardly does any better than placebo."
In the New England Journal of Medicine, Topol writes, "Even in the face of such findings, however, the manufacturer has been actively promoting the use of nesiritide. It has set up a toll-free telephone hotline for "Natrecor Reimbursement Support" and has published a 46-page "Natrecor Reimbursement and Billing Guide." The guide provides physicians with specific Medicare code numbers to be used in billing for a professional fee for nesiritide infusion ($172 for the first hour, $39 for each additional hour, and $408 for eight hours of observation), as one would for chemotherapy."
Topol concludes: "We practice medicine in an era in which there is one pharmaceutical-company representative for every five physicians and in which companies will stretch the limits in their marketing of drugs. ...In my view, nesiritide has not yet met the minimal criteria for safety and efficacy. Until a trial definitively proves that this drug reduces the risk of death or repeated hospitalization for heart failure, there will be questions about the appropriateness of the drug's use or even commercial availability. We need a tune-up of our procedures to eliminate indiscriminate use of drugs, such as nesiritide, when there is not proper evidence of their safety."
Posted by schwitz at July 18, 2005 08:26 AM | TrackBack