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Glaxo Puts SNPs to Work

Glaxo Wellcome was naturally disappointed that it had to withdraw troglitazone (Romozin), a new treatment for Type II diabetes, from the UK market in December 1997, just four months after launch. The problems with troglitazone only really started showing up once the drug came to market, and started being used in patient populations far larger than those assembled for clinical trials. "If we could've identified people who would have adverse events, then we would've had a market for that drug," asserts Alan Roses, MD, a clinical neurologist who became Glaxo's VP and worldwide director, genetics, in June 1997. In fact.Glaxo could have predicted the complications with troglitazone by examining patients' genetic profiles, Roses asserts.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Glaxo Wellcome PLC seems to be taking this homily to heart. The firm was naturally disappointed that it had to withdraw troglitazone (Romozin), a new treatment for Type II diabetes, from the UK market in December 1997, just four months after launch. Although the action was voluntary, Glaxo felt it had little choice. By then, the drug's originator Sankyo Co. Ltd. , and its North American licensee Parke-Davis , a division of Warner-Lambert Co. , (which sold it as Rezulin), had catalogued too many adverse effects on patients' livers to allow it to get through European approvals.

The problems with troglitazone only really started showing up once the drug came to market, and started being used in patient populations far larger than those assembled for clinical trials....

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