[Mb-civic] Flu drug sales soar; specialists fear overuse - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

Flu drug sales soar; specialists fear overuse
Disease strains may strengthen

By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff  |  October 15, 2005

Amid surging fears that avian influenza could ignite a global epidemic, 
sales of the flu medication Tamiflu are soaring in the United States, 
with prescriptions for the drug running as much as eight times higher 
than last year.

Alarmed infectious disease specialists said excessive use of Tamiflu and 
other antiviral drugs could lead to the emergence of flu strains that do 
not respond to antivirals, making both avian and regular flu strains 
even more of a health threat. They also said they have seen evidence 
that patients and doctors are stockpiling the drug on their own, which 
could create a shortage for people actually stricken with the flu, 
especially if there is a global epidemic.

''In case we need to make use of this drug, it's going to be hard to 
distribute it appropriately," said Dr. Deborah Yokoe, a top disease 
tracker at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Until recent years, there was little doctors could offer flu patients 
beyond a recommendation to take aspirin, drink fluids, and rest. But 
Tamiflu, which came on the market six years ago, can cut patients' 
suffering by a few days -- if they take the drug soon after the onset of 
symptoms. It has proven more effective against the ordinary flu than 
three other antiviral medications, and specialists are hopeful that it 
could reduce deaths should there be an avian flu outbreak.

There is no vaccine against avian flu, although scientists are trying to 
develop one, and in recent weeks, Tamiflu has sold better than ever.

''Sales are definitely off the chart," Greg French, a spokesman for 
Drugstore.com, said yesterday in a telephone interview from the Internet 
company's headquarters in Bellevue, Wash. ''Over the past five weeks or 
so, we've actually sold more product than we did in the last six months 
of last year." The drug is now among the company's top five sellers.

A firm that monitors trends in the pharmaceutical industry, Verispan, 
reports that US physicians last week wrote about 34,000 prescriptions 
for Tamiflu, eight times more than a year earlier.

The typical prescription for Tamiflu, made by the Swiss drug company 
Roche Holding AG, is two 75-milligram pills a day for five days. A 
10-pill bottle was being offered yesterday on Drugstore.com's website 
for $65.99.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/10/15/flu_drug_sales_soar_specialists_fear_overuse/
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