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Primary Pulmonary Hypertension News
May 2004

Viagra performs for BP patients

[TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
HYDERABAD : The results of a city-based hospital’s research into the effectiveness of sildenafil citrate (Viagra), as an effective drug in the treating high blood pressure in lung, has been internationally accepted.

Doctors at Care Hospital found that sildenafil citrate, commonly used for improving sexual performance, is effective against the condition called Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH).

The hospital conducted a double blind placebo controlled study on 22 patients, for the purpose and found out that all the patients who were on Sildenafil had improved exercise capacity.

In a double blind placebo controlled study, neither the doctor nor the patient undergoing treatment know which is the drug and which is the placebo.

The hospital authorities said on Tuesday, that the study has been well received by the global medical community and was published in April 7th issue of Journal of American College of Cardiology.

The research team was headed by Dr B Soma Raju and Dr B K S Sastry of Care Hospitals. The doctors feel that the new form of therapy would become a standard procedure for treating PPH.

May 18, 2004, 10:20AM
Judge Allows $1 Billion Cancer Verdict Against Wyeth
By DALE LEZON

A Beaumont judge Monday let stand a jury verdict that pharmaceutical giant Wyeth Laboratories pay more than $1 billion to the family of a woman who died from lung disease the family claimed she contracted after taking Wyeth's diet drug Pondimin. "Wyeth will appeal," said Lowell Weiner, a company spokesman. "The judgment has no basis in law. We are confident the judgment will be overturned."

A jury on April 27 awarded $900 million in punitive damages to the family of Cynthia Cappel Coffey, finding that Wyeth was negligent and had acted with malice, and $113 million in actual damages. Cappel Coffey died from primary pulmonary hypertension in January 2003. Judge Donald J. Floyd entered a judgment consistent with the jury's verdict for Wyeth to pay $1,013,853,000.

Company attorney Bill Sims said on Wyeth's Web site the award exceeds the state cap on punitive damages, which is set at twice the actual damages. Coffey family attorney John M. O'Quinn of Houston, who called the verdict "gratifying," said punitive damages are capped in Texas unless a corporation committed a felony in connection with a claim against it.

O'Quinn said Wyeth completed a form for the Food and Drug Administration about its drug's possible connection to heart valve problems, but destroyed it, a felony, he said.

Pondimin, also known as fenfluramine hydrochloride, was used extensively in the early 1990s with phentermine in weight-loss programs. In September 1997, the FDA, faced with mounting evidence the use of fenfluramine was related to heart valve disease, ordered it off the market.

Since then, tens of thousands of people have sued drug makers, claiming they suffered heart valve damage through using the so-called fen-phen combination to control weight.

Bloomberg business news service said Wyeth has set aside $16.6 billion to resolve such suits. In 2000, more than 125,000 fen-phen users accepted payments from Wyeth in a $3.75 billion settlement offer, Bloomberg reported.

The Coffey verdict was the company's seventh loss in court. It has prevailed in two suits since fen-phen litigation began in earnest in 1999. The Coffey verdict is believed to be the first in a primary pulmonary hypertension suit against Wyeth.