This document discusses blockbuster drugs and reasons for fewer new drug discoveries. It defines a blockbuster drug as generating over $1 billion in annual sales. Several historic blockbuster drugs are profiled, including Tagamet, Lipitor, Advair, Zoloft and Vioxx. However, developing new blockbuster drugs has become challenging due to concerns about pharmaceutical company profits overriding public health needs. Regulators are investigating industry practices like marketing relationships, in response to high drug prices and safety issues like those seen with Vioxx. The system for drug research and development appears poised for significant changes to address these problems.

1. Why Do We Have so Few
Blockbuster Drug Discoveries
Nowadays ?
 Doruk Sefil ( MEDICINE and SOCIETY )
 Kaya Bıçakçı ( VIOXX )
 Özge Yıldız ( ZOLOFT )
 Derin Su Berke ( LIPITOR )
 Kaan Aydın ( ADVAIR FOR ASTHMA )
 Çağın Keskin ( WHAT IS BLOCKBUSTER )

2. WHAT İS
BLOCKBUSTER
DRUG ?
ÇAĞIN KESKİN

3. Blockbuster
An extremely popular drug, usually
one that generates annual sales of
at least $1 billion. A blockbuster
drug can be highly profitable, but
it has some
potential disadvantages.
If the drug is discovered to have
serious side effects,
a company may actually
lose money on it.
Also, like all drugs, a blockbuster
drug eventually
loses patent coverage, and the
company that developed the drug
no longer has exclusive rights to it.

4. “
”
The end of the patent can be very costly for companies

6. 1976
Drug Name: Cimetidine
Trade Name: Tagamet
Use: H2-receptor antagonist
Use: Treat heartburn, GERD, etc.
Ulser Medication

7. TAGAMET
Tagamet emerged as the first blockbuster drug when its sales
exceeded $1 billion in 1986.
An anti-peptic ulcer drug,Tagamet was discovered James W.
Black and his coleagues at Smith Kline & French’s(SK&F)
Before Tagament , SK/F was a little-known U.S drug firm in
Philadelphia.
After Tagamet, SK/F became one of the largest pharmaceutical
companies in the World.
The history of Tagamet is one of the most extraordinary in the
annals of medicine.
It is a saga of a drug that almost escaped detection because the
reserachers efforts that began in 1964 did not seem to produce
results within the first 12 years.

8. ADVAIR for Asthma

9. APPROVED USES
 ADVAIR DISKUS is a prescription medicine for the
treatment of asthma in patients 4 years and older.
ADVAIR HFA is a prescription medicine for the treatment
of asthma in patients 12 years and older.
 ADVAIR should be used only if your healthcare provider
decides that your asthma is not well controlled with a
long-term asthma control medicine, such as an inhaled
corticosteroid.
 ADVAIR DISKUS 250/50 is a prescription medicine
approved for adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease (COPD), including chronic bronchitis,
emphysema, or both. You should only take 1 inhalation
of ADVAIR DISKUS twice a day. Higher doses will not
provide additional benefits.

10.  Advair’s Ascent to Asthma
 Advair is one of the biggest blockbusters in pharmaceutical
history.
 The asthma drug has generated more than $80 billion in global
revenues for its maker, GlaxoSmithKline, since its U.S. approval
in 2000. With its distinctive purple inhaler, Advair has helped
legions of asthma sufferers achieve control of their symptoms.
 But recent federal research suggests that a significant
percentage of asthma patients begin using Advair
inappropriately, taking on what the drug's label describes as an
increased "risk of asthma-related death" from one of its two
ingredients.

12. GSK's blockbuster Advair under threat
from generic?
 Sales of GlaxoSmithKline's Advair/Seretide could be under threat after
regulators in Sweden issued a light for a copycat version of the
blockbuster lung drug, paving the way for its launch in several other
European countries. Sweden - acting as reference state under Europe's
decentralised approval procedure - actually gave the go-ahead for
Greek firm Elpen's generic form of Advair (salmeterol/fluticasone) last
month, according to Reuters, but the decision seems to have been kept
quiet by all involved.
 Advair, which is marketed for asthma and chronic obstructive
pulmonary disorder, pulls in sales of over £5 billion for GSK every year,
but the company seems to be relatively unfazed over the potential
impact Elpen's product might have on its drug's turnover.
 Crucially, despite containing the same active ingredients, the inhaler
devices used for their delivery are quite different between the two
products, and thus GSK believes they "are not fully substitutable"
throughout Europe, a spokesperson told the media.

13. LIPITOR
Derin Su
Berke

14.  Lipitor, the best-selling drug in the history of
pharmaceuticals, is the blockbuster that almost wasn't.
 When it was in development, the cholesterol-lowering
medicine was viewed as such an also-ran it almost didn't
make it into patient testing.

15.  By the time Lipitor went on sale in early 1997, it was
the fifth drug in a class called statins that lower LDL or
bad cholesterol. The class already included three
blockbusters, drugs with sales of $1 billion a year or
more. Normally, that would make it very tough for a
latecomer to sway many doctors and patients to switch.

16.  But a 1996 study showed Lipitor reduced bad
cholesterol dramatically more than the other statins,
from the very start of treatment and even more so over
time. A striking graph of those results helped Lipitor
sales representatives turn it into the world's best-selling
drug ever, with more than $125 billion.

18.  The Lipitor which Cholesterol drugs overturn the
pharmaceutical industry lose their privileges in 2012.
The drug companies can sell cheaper versions can
produce equivalent’ve opened to competition. This is a
heavy damage to Pfizer. Pharmaceutical companies are
continuing their way to new strategies to prevent such
losses.

19. What is
Zoloft?
ÖZGE YILDIZ

21.  Zoloft (sertraline) is an antidepressant in a group of
drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
(SSRIs). Sertraline affects chemicals in the brain that
may be unbalanced in people with depression, panic,
anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive symptoms

23.  Zoloft is used to treat depression, obsessive-
compulsive disorder, panic disorder, anxiety
disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),
and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD).
 Drugs of ZOLOFT just produced by PFIZER. Because of
blockbuster drug.

24. VIOXX

25.  Blockbuster drugs are used to treat some diseases like
diabetes, cholesterol, asthma and cancer. It is quite
popular among worldwide that its annual sales are nearly
1$ billion. The most famous ones of these drugs are Zoloft,
Lipitor and Vioxx. In this presentation, Vioxx will be
examined through the sphere of usage and what is it for?
Vioxx is mostly taken to reduce the pain, rheumatoid
arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and inflammation.

26.  However, it has been withdrawn from the market
throughout the USA in 2004 which can cause some serious
cardiovascular happenings. Also there are some side
effects that the user can come across. Nausea, swelling, a
skin rash or itching, yellowing of skin or eyes can be one
of these side effects. If a person experiences these side
effects, he/she immediately consult to a doctor and take
a medical treatment. Apart from the side effects, there
are some drugs that can affect the Vioxx usage in which
the medicines that contains aspirin, aproxen, or
ketoprofen.

27.  When Vioxx is presented to the market, the main goal
was the expanding drug’s usage worldwidely. However,
the main goal was reached but the patients were
unaware of the dangers of the drug. That is why it
withdrawn from the market by doubling the risk of
heart attack and dead but when it is withdrawn, up to
the 25 million Americans had taken the drug and 38.000
death were associated with the Vioxx use
KAYA
BIÇAKÇI

28. Why Do We Have so Few
Blockbuster Drug Discoveries
Nowadays ?
 A lot of pharmaceutical companies are accused by
doing pharmaceutics, making deals to sell their
medicine more expensive, giving advertises to
magazines that focuses on positive aspects of the
medicine rather than the negative aspects of it.
Even, there are some companies that have been
punished and paid lots of money because of the
wrong or lacking information that they gave about
their medicines. However, it seems like those
punishments are not so deterrent, thanks to high
profits. That’s the reason that they do not hesitate
to force the law.

30.  In this case, what World Health Organization said is not
that surprising, that, there is a discrepancy between
pharmaceutical companies’ search of profit and publics’
social and medical needs. In Addition, Council of Europe
started a research about protecting the public against
the unwanted impacts of the industry. In that research,
some applications will be approached such as
relationship between pharmaceutical companies and
medical workers.

31.  At the end of the researches like this, it doesn’t matter
what result we had. The system of developing new
medicines and medicine sector is about to go to a huge
change. The good and easy profit that companies gain is
threatening right now.
 DORUK SEFİL