Dr. Giuseppe Biondi-Zoccai MD

GLG News^SM Analyses by Giuseppe Biondi-Zoccai(?)

Generics are here to stay

December 5, 2008

Analysis of:Generic Heart Drugs as Good as Brand-Name Counterparts | www.washingtonpost.com

Generic drugs are cheaper equivalent of brand-name (aka proprietary) drugs which become available after a specific drug patent expires. There is ongoing debate whether generic drugs are as safe and as effective as their brand-name counterparts. Recent evidence from a comprehensive review published in the authoritative Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that generic drugs for heart disease are as safe and as effective as the corresponding proprietary drugs. Thus, given their lower cost, generic drugs may progressively reduce the market share of brand-name drugs, especially whenever a proprietary  drug is very expensive or its market position depends only on monopoly rather than effective branding and marketing.

Metabolic syndrome is not an independent cause of cardivascular events: implications for drug development and use

May 30, 2008

Analysis of:Metabolic Syndrome Not Useful in Predicting Cardiovascular Risk | www.medpagetoday.com

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of individual characteristics that has been preliminarily associated with adverse events such as heart attack and stroke If proved an independent cause of cardiovascular disease, metabolic. syndrome could become another feasible target of pharmacologic primary prevention, eg of rimonabant, a novel drug from Sanofi-Aventis that is also under investigation for the treatment/prevention of obesity. However, recent data published in a leading journal, the Lancet, cast a shadow of doubt on independent causal role of the metabolic syndrome, suggesting that its unfavorable impact on patient outlook is largely explained by other risk factors such as increased blood pressure, increased blood lipids, and inflammation.