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【drug-news】戒烟药Chantix PK NicoDerm：营销面对科学
Chantix Versus NicoDerm: Marketing Meets Science
Posted by Jacob Goldstein
Pfizer’s smoking-cessation drug Chantix edged out GlaxoSmithKline’s nicotine patch NicoDerm CQ in a study published today. The study was funded by Pfizer, and it’s a bit of good news for a drug that’s seen U.S. sales fall sharply amid concerns about the drug’s side effects.
SmokingOddly enough, we wouldn’t have heard about the study (it’s published in Thorax, a British journal that’s not on our regular reading list) but for the fact that we got a press release about it from GlaxoSmithKline.
Glaxo points out that there were no statistically significant differences in the quit rates between the drugs at six months and one year.
This is correct, as far as it goes. But the percentage of people who stayed off cigarettes was higher among those who received Chantix both at six months and at 12 months. And the difference at 12 months — 26.1% for Chantix patients, compared with 20.3% for NicoDerm patients — narrowly missed attaining statistical significance. (The p-value was .056; a p-value of less than .05 is the customary cutoff for significance.)
Still, the study’s primary measure of success, as defined before the trial began, was continuous abstinence from smoking during the last four weeks of treatment, which lasted 10 weeks for NicoDerm and 12 weeks for Chantix (the standard length for each treatment).
By that measure, Chantix beat NicoDerm 55.9% to 43.2%, a significant difference (p less than .001). Among patients taking Chantix, 84.8% reported side effects, compared with 70.3%, though it’s worth noting that plenty of people who try to quit smoking without taking drugs experience side effects as well.
As Glaxo’s press release notes, six-month quit rates are considered a standard measure in clinical trials and a good predictor of long-term quit rates. It’s also worth noting that “editorial support” for the paper was provided by Envision Pharma, a “medical and scientific communications company.” That support was paid for by Pfizer, according to a disclosure at the bottom of the article.
So what do we make of all this? Chantix did appear a bit — just a bit — more effective. The finding is accompanied by a large grain of salt–Pfizer’s connection to the research. More broadly, as both Pfizer’s funding and Glaxo’s press release show, there’s no slowdown in a marketing war on to capture smokers who want to quit. [标签:content1][标签:content2]
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作者:admin@医学,生命科学 2011-08-28 08:09
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