Pfizer Starts Media Ad Blitz to Address Smoking Drug Concerns
by Shannon Pettypiece
May 28 (Bloomberg) – Pfizer Inc. the world's biggest drugmaker, said it will run newspaper ads and send letters to doctors to quell concerns about its quit-smoking drug Chantix, linked to suicides, seizures, and traffic accidents.
The New York-based company will run ads in the country's five largest newspapers today, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, said spokesman Ray Kerins in a telephone interview yesterday. The drugmaker is also in the process of sending letters to 300,000 health-care professionals and plans to hold briefings with reporters, he said.
U.S. regulators received more accounts of serious side effects tied to Chantix in the fourth quarter than from any other drug, according to a report released last week by the nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices. The Food and Drug Administration warned in January that a high number of suicides and attempted suicides were reported in people taking the drug and that a possible link couldn't be ruled out. Since then, sales of the pill, one of Pfizer's most important new products, have fallen by almost one-third.
"When there is confusion in the marketplace related to one of our products we want to make sure the right information is out there," Kerins said. "We can't lose sight of the benefit of this product, the public health benefit is clear."
Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler has been touting Chantix to help offset $12 billion in sales that the company's Lipitor cholesterol medicine will begin losing to generic competition in 2010. Analysts had expected the anti-smoking treatment would generate $1.1 billion this year.
Kindler has said he is also trying to speed new drugs to market and increase sales outside the U.S.
Falling Shares
Pfizer's shares have fallen 30 percent in the past 12 months on investor concerns that Kindler's plan won't be enough to prevent tumbling profits in 2010. Yesterday, Pfizer fell 3 cents to $19.30 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
The newspaper ads feature a letter from Pfizer Chief Medical Officer Joe Feczko telling readers about the dangers of smoking and the benefits of Chantix. It says 44 percent of patients who took Chantix in its clinical trials quitsmoking after 12 weeks. The ads also tell patients to stop taking the drug if their mood or behavior changes.
Pfizer said it will start running television commercials in early June that talk about the importance of quitting smoking without naming Chantix. The company hasn't decided yet whether to resume branded ads. It also will send opinion pieces to newspapers to ``address misperceptions and misunderstanding about the safety and efficacy of Chantix,'' Kerins said.
FAA Decision
The institute's report on May 21 spurred the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to ban pilots from using Chantix. The nonprofit health advocacy group urged U.S. regulators to tighten warnings on the anti-smoking pill, prescribed more than 6 million times since it came on the market in August 2006.
Norman Edleman, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association in New York, last week said wary doctors are now using the pill only when other treatments fail.
The FDA spokeswoman Susan Cruzan said last week that the agency is reviewing all reports of side effects linked to Chantix and is focusing its limited resources on psychiatric reports first.
The agency also is scheduled June 3 to brief the staff of Sen. Charles Grassley an Iowa Republican, who sent a letter to the FDA questioning its response to the Chantix reports, said FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza in an e-mail.
To contact the reporter on this story: Shannon Pettypiece in New York at spettypiece@bloomberg.net
May 28 (Bloomberg) – Pfizer Inc. the world's biggest drugmaker, said it will run newspaper ads and send letters to doctors to quell concerns about its quit-smoking drug Chantix, linked to suicides, seizures, and traffic accidents.
The New York-based company will run ads in the country's five largest newspapers today, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, said spokesman Ray Kerins in a telephone interview yesterday. The drugmaker is also in the process of sending letters to 300,000 health-care professionals and plans to hold briefings with reporters, he said.
U.S. regulators received more accounts of serious side effects tied to Chantix in the fourth quarter than from any other drug, according to a report released last week by the nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices. The Food and Drug Administration warned in January that a high number of suicides and attempted suicides were reported in people taking the drug and that a possible link couldn't be ruled out. Since then, sales of the pill, one of Pfizer's most important new products, have fallen by almost one-third.
"When there is confusion in the marketplace related to one of our products we want to make sure the right information is out there," Kerins said. "We can't lose sight of the benefit of this product, the public health benefit is clear."
Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler has been touting Chantix to help offset $12 billion in sales that the company's Lipitor cholesterol medicine will begin losing to generic competition in 2010. Analysts had expected the anti-smoking treatment would generate $1.1 billion this year.
Kindler has said he is also trying to speed new drugs to market and increase sales outside the U.S.
Falling Shares
Pfizer's shares have fallen 30 percent in the past 12 months on investor concerns that Kindler's plan won't be enough to prevent tumbling profits in 2010. Yesterday, Pfizer fell 3 cents to $19.30 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
The newspaper ads feature a letter from Pfizer Chief Medical Officer Joe Feczko telling readers about the dangers of smoking and the benefits of Chantix. It says 44 percent of patients who took Chantix in its clinical trials quitsmoking after 12 weeks. The ads also tell patients to stop taking the drug if their mood or behavior changes.
Pfizer said it will start running television commercials in early June that talk about the importance of quitting smoking without naming Chantix. The company hasn't decided yet whether to resume branded ads. It also will send opinion pieces to newspapers to ``address misperceptions and misunderstanding about the safety and efficacy of Chantix,'' Kerins said.
FAA Decision
The institute's report on May 21 spurred the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to ban pilots from using Chantix. The nonprofit health advocacy group urged U.S. regulators to tighten warnings on the anti-smoking pill, prescribed more than 6 million times since it came on the market in August 2006.
Norman Edleman, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association in New York, last week said wary doctors are now using the pill only when other treatments fail.
The FDA spokeswoman Susan Cruzan said last week that the agency is reviewing all reports of side effects linked to Chantix and is focusing its limited resources on psychiatric reports first.
The agency also is scheduled June 3 to brief the staff of Sen. Charles Grassley an Iowa Republican, who sent a letter to the FDA questioning its response to the Chantix reports, said FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza in an e-mail.
To contact the reporter on this story: Shannon Pettypiece in New York at spettypiece@bloomberg.net