March 29, 2024

Johnson and Johnson kept quiet on popular diabetes drug as red flags – Daily Mail

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Healthcare manufacturer Johnson and Johnson is accused of keeping quiet about it’s $1 billion diabetes drug Invokana after being warned of its potentially deadly side effect. 

An investigation revealed that as far back as 2010, during clinical trials for Invokana J&J researchers learned that some patients showed increased levels of an acid known as ketones in their blood. 

But J&J made no a…….

Healthcare manufacturer Johnson and Johnson is accused of keeping quiet about it’s $1 billion diabetes drug Invokana after being warned of its potentially deadly side effect. 

An investigation revealed that as far back as 2010, during clinical trials for Invokana J&J researchers learned that some patients showed increased levels of an acid known as ketones in their blood. 

But J&J made no attempt to flag this issue to regulators, and even after the drug to treat type-2 diabetes was released J&J executives repeatedly overruled safety concerns, Reuters reported, and launched the drug in spring 2013. 

During a 2014 meeting, less than one year after the drug had been on the market and earned Johnson and Johnson nearly $1 billion in sales, executives were told by the company’s safety team that people taking Invokana were falling gravely ill. 

Dr. Bruce Leslie (pictured) said he recommended that J&J executives alert regulators in order to get ahead of any future controversy but ultimately no action was taken

Among those who sued was Veronica Ryan, (pictured) a 58-year-old type 2 diabetes patient in Tennessee who became seriously ill after being prescribed the drug

Ryan has since recovered, and filed a lawsuit against J&J over her ordeal 

At around the same time, the company also received similar reports from doctors from across the United States regarding 18 patients sickened by a rare and potentially fatal buildup of acid in the blood, known as diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA, within days or weeks of starting Invokana.  

Dr. Bruce Leslie, who led the safety team at the March 2014 meeting, told Reuters that he recommended that J&J executives alert U.S. and European regulators in order to get ahead of any future controversy ‘otherwise, it could come back and bite us in the ass,’ but ultimately no action was taken. 

According to Leslie, in the weeks after the March 2014 meeting he received a letter from his boss warning him that he could be fired for contributing to ‘an unnecessarily contentious’ discussion on Invokana.

Just a few weeks after that, the Japanese company that developed the drug and licensed it told J&J that elevated ketones were a potential risk.

Among those injured by the drug was Veronica Ryan, a 58-year-old type 2 diabetes patient in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who later sued.

Ryan was prescribed Invokana in September 2015 but told Reuters that over the next few weeks she felt increasingly weak …….

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10289063/J-J-kept-quiet-popular-diabetes-drug-red-flags-multiplied.html

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