"Sweet" some of you might be thinking. "Asthma sucks, and more people are getting it. A new treatment surely must be e a good thing."
Except that a budesonide-containing single-agent therapy for the maintenance treatment of asthma is already on the market. It's called the Pulmicort Turbuhaler®. Guess who makes it? AstraZeneca. When AstraZeneca says "new" what they mean is "just different enough to keep patent protection." Those of you in the profession have heard this tune many a time before, and I was ready to throw the letter onto the "same crap different day" pile when I saw this:
Do you see the part where it says "The clinical response of this new dry-powder inhaler compared with PULMICORT TURBUHALER tends to be lower? Jesus H., Big Pharma bastards used to at least have enough respect for the medical community to try to come up with a lie about how the new bullshit patent extending product was supposedly better than what it was designed to replace. Now they just come flat out and tell you the new stuff doesn't work as well. Here it is again. This is a chart showing the effectiveness of the old Turbuhaler, the new "Flexhaler" and a placebo. The new product is the second line on the graph.
The graph shows just what you think it does. The new product is less effective than the old one. And the gap appears to get bigger with time. Just in case you have trouble interpreting the data, AstraZeneca spells it out for you again in the text right above the chart.
Oh. AstraZeneca also says they will be phasing out the more effective Turbuhaler "so as to minimize confusion in the marketplace"
Yeah......drug companies are all about minimizing confusion. That's why Kaopectate is now Pepto-Bismol, and why Maalox is Pepto Bismol, but not all Maalox, just the total stomach relief Maalox, and why Midol contains Tylenol, except when it contains Aleve.
And when I say Tylenol I mean the Tylenol that's Tylenol, not the Tylenol that's really Benadryl. It's all about minimizing the confusion in the marketplace. Christ. I guess they still do respect us enough to lie.
Ok kids, lets go over what we've learned:
AstraZeneca Is about to introduce a new product.
This new product will be less effective than the current product it manufactures.
The product that works better will no longer be made. If you don't like it, you can go screw.
It's all about minimizing confusion in the marketplace.
Well I for one will be able to breathe easier tonight........of course I don't have asthma.
