Certriad just wasn’t valuable enough

It was just yesterday that I posted a short news article on the website about AstraZeneca and Abbott pulling the plug on their dyslipidemia drug Certriad (click here to read that), pretty much because the FDA had some questions about it, it seems they were worried it wouldn’t be quite as popular on the market because of those concerns if it got approved, and so it just wasn’t “commercially attractive” enough for them anymore.

I find myself of three minds about this development, quite frankly.

On the one hand, as a consumer (though I don’t need prescriptions much and hope I can continue that well past my middle age years), I’m not sure how I feel about the tactic of two companies putting their drugs together into a single combo pill as (presumably) a way to extend some patent protection time and keep getting name-brand-level payments for drugs that might otherwise be generic.

On the other hand, as a journalist who has focused on healthcare and medical areas most of my career, and now earns my living reporting on the business aspect of pharma and biotech, I understand the need for such companies to keep money flowing into their accounts, both to support the people who work for them and to fund important R&D (and, hopefully, take out ads in ddn, to be honest).

On the third hand (meaning I just borrowed one of my chief editor’s limbs or I’m a mutant), why does this drug have to be abandoned because it’s no longer quite as potentially profitable? With money already put into the effort, isn’t it worth the time and expense to address the FDA’s issues, whatever they are, and make some money off Certriad? Isn’t the goal to get useful therapies to patients and wasn’t this drug supposed to be both convenient and helpful for patients with mixed dyslipidemia?

I mean, companies are willing to tackle orphan drugs and neglected diseases even though the payoffs might not be as high, so what made Certriad so unattractive all of a sudden?

Mind you, I’m not pointing fingers at either company, because I don’t know what the contents of the FDA letter were, and last I heard, the companies hadn’t shared that information. But still, I shake my head and wonder why you just drop a drug that combines two already approved products because it just isn’t as “commercially attractive” anymore?