Avandia Study Leaked to Glaxo
January 31st, 2008 joshua
A doctor reviewing a study on the diabetes drug Avandia leaked a report to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine to GlaxoSmithKline, the makers of the drug.
The move violated the journal’s confidentiality agreement and may have helped GSK prepare its public response to the drug’s side effect of causing heart attacks. The doctor blamed the poor judgment on “not feeling well,” the Wall Street Journal reports, quoting an article that appeared in the scientific journal, Nature.
GSK said the leak did not help the company as it was already in discussions with the Food and Drug Administration about Avandia’s risk of heart attacks. The New England Journal of Medicine said it would handle the leak of the peer-review study privately.
Another risk of leaking this information is financial. Though a GSK spokesperson conducted no stock trading based on the leak, the company’s stock tumbled when the news was released and Avandia sales slowed considerably.
In November, the FDA attached a “black box” warning on Avandia based on these findings.
