Recent diabetes news has focused on the major company Eli Lilly, who are facing a storm of controversy over their schizophrenia drug Zyprexa. New findings indicate that the information Eli Lilly executives provided to doctors about the blood-sugar risk of the drug did not match the internal data from clinical trials. The controversial reports follow leaked company documents.
The documents are not new either, with some dating back to the year 2000 and before. According to results, patients on Zyprexa are up to three and a half times as likely to experience high blood sugar levels as those who took a placebo. A lawyer who represents the mentally ill sent the documents to the New York Times.
Further unreported side effects of Zyprexa include considerable weight gain, with some patients on Zyprexa gaining 66 pounds in a year. Lilly yesterday issued a statement that the figures were accurate, and that February 2000 data was taken out of context.
In response to questions about the difference between its first view of the data and its subsequent public descriptio, Lilly issued a statement yesterday saying that the later figures were accurate and the information in February 2000 was out of context.
The food and drug administratio, who should have seen all figures, declined to comment. Zyprexa has become a huge seller for Lilly, generating billions of dollars worth of sales .
