NEW YORK (AP) -- Pfizer Inc. said Friday it is ending a safety study of its pain drug Celebrex because of difficulty finding patients. The trial was designed to measure the effects of Celebrex on patients who were taking the drug to treat juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Pfizer said it was having trouble enrolling patients in the trial, and the study was not likely to produce meaningful results because patients with the condition tend to use Celebrex for a short time and because the rate of side effects was very low. Sales of Celebrex grew 6 percent to $2.52 billion in 2011, which made it Pfizer's fifth-best-selling drug. It was originally approved in 1998, and Pfizer was required to do the safety study in 2006 after Celebrex was approved as a treatment for juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The company said the Food and Drug Administration released it from its requirement. Shares of Pfizer rose 3 cents to end Friday's session at $21.48. The stock has traded between $16.63 and $22.17 in the past 52 weeks. See more here: Pfizer ends Celebrex post-approval safety study … Continue reading →

Americans who enjoy using recreational drugs probably don't like to imagine the ripple effects in Mexico: the predatory narco gangs and corrupt cops in Ciudad Jurez, the bullet-riddled bodies and ravaged neighborhoods in Tijuana and Michoacn. But at a recent rehearsal of "Timboctou," a darkly comic, disquieting play set against the backdrop of the Mexican drug wars that's having its world premiere through Sunday at REDCAT, director Martn Acosta reflected on the bloody connective tissue that the experimental drama weaves between Mexico's ruthless narco lords and their naive and insatiable U.S. customers. "I believe it's a question of binational responsibility," said the Mexican director, speaking in Spanish. "I don't think the play analyzes who is responsible. But it assumes there's a very direct link, looking from the Mexican side." "Timboctou," a bilingual, multimedia piece by the precocious 27-year-old Mexican playwright Alejandro Ricao, is one of a proliferating number of plays, movies and television series that address the volatile and complex subject of Mexican narco-terrorism. In it, the fates of a lovelorn Spanish tourist, a well-meaning Mexican official, two rather clueless U.S. dudes on spring break and twin sibling narco-thugs reminiscent of Samuel Beckett's tramps in "Waiting for Godot" all collide … Continue reading →

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Powers Taylor, LLP, a plaintiffs pharmaceutical law firm, has begun an investigation in potential lawsuits against the manufacturers and distributors of Pradaxa, a prescription drug that was approved to reduce the risk of strokes in high-risk patients. Although the drug was only approved for use in the United States in October 2010, it has already generated an abnormally high number of adverse-event reports. These reports include 260 fatalities from people who have bled to death while using the drug, which have triggered several outcries for a Pradaxa recall. Pradaxa has been shown to inhibit the release of a key protein that is essential to the formation of blood clots. Because of this effect, patients who have ulcers or who suffer internal injuries may suffer much greater blood loss than persons who are not on Pradaxa. This problem is magnified exponentially by the fact that there is no anecdote or reversing agent that can eliminate Pradaxas inhibition of blood clot formation. Some of the Pradaxa bleeding deaths have occurred while the patient was in the hospital, with doctors helpless to reverse Pradaxas effect. Despite mounting evidence of these hazards, which include a January 2012 study in the Archives of Internal … Continue reading →