A Boeringher ya le gana hasta la Aspirina...

Primero fué la batalla perdida contra a FDA por el registro del Viagra femenino en que tantas expectativas habian depositado.

Ahora es otra historia.
Nos la cuenta Ed Silverman en su Pharmalot.

Boehringer Heart Drug Fails To Beat Aspirin

By Ed Silverman // June 21st, 2010

Four years ago, Boehringer Ingelheim set out to prove that its Aggrenox heart drug could beat a basic dose of aspirin in preventing strokes. The results came back in March, but the drugmaker hasn’t worked very hard to publicize them. Why? The trial was a bust - Aggrenox failed to meet the primary endpoint of reducing the risk of secondary ischemic stroke in 1,294 patients in Japan. The incidence among patients given Aggrenox was 6.9 percent compared with 5 percent for those on aspirin (look here).

This is a problem for Boehringer, which markets Aggrenox to “reduce the risk of a subsequent stroke in patients who have had a transient ischemic attack, or TIA, or stroke due to a blood clot.” After all, Aggrenox is rather pricey, costing about $3 per pill, and it must be taken twice a day (see here and here). Aspirin costs a lot less. The results are unlikely to help Boehringer boost Aggrenox sales, which totaled $404 million in the US through pharmacies last year, according to IMS Health. That was up about 10 percent, but the pill’s 6.7 percent market share was well below the 92.6 percent held by Plavix. (The drugmaker also suffered an unrelated setback last week when its female sexual dysfunction pill was voted down by an FDA advisory panel).

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