Avandia's risks negligible, says study

Avandia's risks negligible, says study
A study published in the online issue of Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety says that Glaxo's under fire diabetes drug Avandia is no more risky than all other available diabetes drugs on the market.

The study mentioned in the journal involved 33,000 diabetes patients who were routinely taking the drug. The study examined the incidences of heart attacks and hospitalizations due to Avandia. The release of the study follows a review article in last month's New England Journal of Medicine, which said Avandia increased the risk of heart attacks by 43 percent and heart related deaths by 64 percent.

GlaxoSmithKline has been hammered after the study was published although the drug maker has claimed the study was premature in its conclusions. It has also released the results of another study involving 4,400 diabetes patients which showed that heart risks were not conclusive.

The interim analysis from the current study lasting 3.75 years, found no significant difference in heart risk between the group taking Avandia and the control group, which took metformin and sulfonylurea. The study also said there was no difference between the two groups in heart related deaths.

"The interim findings do not show evidence of a significant difference in cardiovascular death and heart attack between Avandia and the control groups, and therefore do not confirm the hypothesis generated by the recently published meta-analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine that raised concerns about these events with Avandia," Moncef Slaoui, chairman, R&D for GSK revealed in a statement.