The Food and Drug Administration has declined to approve yet another prescription diet pill, vanquishing nearly any prospect that a new obesity medicine will be available to overweight Americans this year....
>>>The Food and Drug Administration has declined to approve yet another prescription diet pill, vanquishing nearly any prospect that a new obesity medicine will be available to overweight Americans this year.
In a rare move, the agency told the drug maker, Orexigen Therapeutics, that to win approval it must first do a long-term study to demonstrate that the drug, called Contrave, does not raise the risk of heart attacks.
In doing so, the agency sent a strong signal that it was exercising considerable caution in assessing a new generation of diet medicines, after serious health problems, including deaths, caused by some older weight-loss pills.
Contrave was the third of three obesity drugs that the F.D.A. has declined to approve in the last few months, citing safety concerns.
After Orexigen announced the agency’s decision early on Tuesday, some experts and patient advocates warned that the action could further discourage, or even kill, efforts by pharmaceutical companies to develop medicines for obesity, one of the nation’s largest health problems.
**The excerpt is taken from a NYT article,"FDA Declines to Approve Diet Drug," written by Andrew Pollack which is linked below. Click through to read more about this issue about obesity drugs.**
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/business/02drug.html
