"The Crowd is My Only Drug," Says GSK Olympics Anti-Doping DTC Ad Campaign

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) will raise awareness of its role in anti-doping measures at the London 2012 Olympic Games as part of its first consumer-facing corporate campaign in the UK (see here).

Advertisements will appear across a range of media, including television, and outdoor advertising space, commencing July 23. One TV ad is currently available on Youtube:



Obviously, when the athlete star of this video is quoted as saying "The Crowd is My Only Drug," he means illegal drugs that some athletes may use to boost performance, not the drugs sold be GSK for legitimate use. But I wonder if social media "crowds" -- as in "Wisdom of the Crowd" -- can replace some Rx drugs for some people? I'm thinking about GSK drugs such as diet pill Alli and diabetes drug Avandia, both of which have been problems for GSK (see here and here).

(Little) Used Drug for Sale. GSK Says, Bye Bye Alli!

"Four years after launching the nonprescription diet pill Alli with much fanfare and a heavy marketing budget, U.K. drug maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) on Thursday said that it plans to sell off the drug," according to this story in today's WSJ.

Back in November, 2010, I noted that the EU would release data in December that could put Alli diet pill sales in the toilet (see here). GSK "acknowledged in February that demand for the drug was falling in the U.S. and Europe."

Duh!

GSK sold £150 million of Alli in 2007, £75 million in 2009, and £203 million in 2009 as GSK launched Alli throughout Europe. GSK didn't break out Alli sales in 2010, but I bet it's back down to £100 million level. Not exactly in the toilet yet.

I can't wait to see who buys this lemon.

RELATED NEWS:

Public Citizen Asks FDA To Remove Two Diet Drugs From The Market.
ABC World News reported, "You've probably seen the ads for that diet pill Alli [orlistat] that promises safe weight loss without starving yourself. Forty million people have tried it or its prescription alternative Xenical, but complaints of nasty and dangerous side effects are increasing and for the second time in five years health advocates urged the government to ban it."

The AP reports that "Public Citizen filed a petition with the FDA on Thursday calling on the agency to remove" both drugs "from the market." The group "says it identified 47 cases of acute pancreatitis and 73 kidney stones among patients taking the drugs. The reports were culled from the FDA's public database of negative drug reactions."

New Research Links Orlistat To Increased Risk Of Acute Kidney Injury. 
HeartWire reported that "a review of patients taking the diet drug orlistat (Xenical/Alli, Roche) in Ontario, Canada over a seven-year period points to a 2% increase in acute kidney injuries within one year of patients starting the drug." The data "were reported by Dr. Matthew Weir (University of Western Ontario, London) and colleagues in a research letter published April 12, 2011 in the Archives of Internal Medicine."

EU to Release Data in December That Could Put Alli Diet Pill Sales in the Toilet!

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) -- Europe's equivalent to the FDA in the U.S. -- "will make thousands of pages of clinical trial reports public next week after pressure from drug-safety activists because of suicide risks linked to Sanofi-Aventis SA’s failed diet pill Acomplia," according to this report.

The data will include results from clinical trial reports on three obesity drugs: Roche Holding AG’s Xenical, Abbott Laboratories' Meridia and Sanofis Acomplia. Acomplia was never approved in the U.S., and EMA pulled the drug from the market in October 2008. Abbott agreed to take Meridia off the U.S. market in October. The EMA halted sales of the 13-year-old diet pill in January. But Xenical is still available in Europe and both the EMA and FDA have allowed GSK to sell Xenical’s active ingredient, orlistat, as the non-prescription diet pill Alli.

Who knows what will come to light when this data is released. Anders Joergesen, a researcher at the Copenhagen-based Nordic Cochrane Centre, which called for the release of the data, said "It's a very detailed report describing the benefits and harms, more detail than is available for example in medical journals. The medical journal's report is about 10-15 pages, maybe less, and these consist of 100, 200, 300 pages per trial. Let's see what we get," said Joergesen, "because it may be fully redacted and a blank sheet."

After analysis of the diet drug clinical trail data, Joergesen and colleagues may do for Xenical and Alli what Cleveland Clinic's Dr. Steven Nissen did for Avandia -- ie, put sales in the toilet, exactly where Alli's "treatment effects" end up (sometimes; see "Alli Oops! I Just Pooped Myself!" and "Alli Newspeak: Oily Spotting is 'Treatment Effect'").