After investing at least $ 4 billion to promote Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency( EPI)“ awareness” in the last two years, Chicago based AbbVie( of Humira fame) is finally advertising its drug, Creon, a pig enzyme, to treat the condition. A 30-day supply of Creon costs $ 1,600 to $ 1,700 without insurance.
Why the delay in marketing the drug itself? It takes millions to expand a market.
It wasn’ t easy to put“ EPI” on the disease-you-might-have map. To sell the condition, AbbVie had to convince people who thought they just had stomach issues that they in fact had EPI— years of expensive“ symptom marketing,” also called disease mongering. Now that the 4-digit priced Creon is available, AbbVie is conducting damage control over the cost by offering patients free co-pay cards, nutritional counseling, and“ navigators.”
By law, when a drugmaker runs unbranded disease awareness(“ you may be suffering from”) ads that do not mention the drug being sold, they do not have to list risks and side effects which can, well, unsell the drug. Creon, for example, can cause stomach pain, gas, and vomiting— yes, like the condition it treats— blood sugar fluctuations, elevated uric acid( see gout), and, rarely, pig viruses and fibrosing colonopathy. That doesn’ t sell product.
AbbVie no doubt hopes that potential Creon users have forgotten Baxter’ s 2008 contaminated heparin scandal which killed 81 and injured 785; that was from pig intestines, and Creon is from pig pancreata, so rest assured, target demographic.
The Trial Lawyer 91