Chantix Suicide: Quit-Smoking Aid, or Smoking Gun?

Horsham, PAIt's somewhat ironic when one considers the suicide risk inherent with use of the anti-smoking drug Chantix, given that some analysts are expressing concern over the very health of Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant that makes the now-controversial Chantix. "It is another nail in Pfizer's coffin," said one analyst in New York.

Meanwhile, the legal community is predicting a fresh wave of lawsuits in the wake of the Chantix ban imposed by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for pilots and air traffic controllers. It was revealed this week that individuals in those positions now on a Chantix program are required to immediately come off Chantix, and everyone else is simply not allowed to use it. This, after the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) released a damning report on Chantix. Since Chantix was approved in May of 2006 on the heels of an accelerated approval process requested by Pfizer, Chantix has been implicated in more than 3000 reports of suicides, homicidal thoughts, aggression and potential psychosis.

There were also reports of additional injuries from accidents stemming from dizziness, unconsciousness and confusion.

Could the Chantix implication for suicide have a similar affect on the manufacturer itself? Certainly, Chantix was initially viewed as a blockbuster smoking cessation tool, and given the desire of millions of Americans and others around the world to get off tobacco for good, Pfizer was seeing welcome dollar signs on the horizon.

That's because Pfizer will start losing ground to Lipitor generics in two years time, when the company loses patent protection on what is now their biggest-seller. It was hoped that Chantix would help offset the forecast $12 billion dollars in sales Lipitor, the anti-cholesterol drug, had been raking in.

That doesn't appear to be the case, now. Shares of Pfizer had dropped to an 11-year low by the close of the trading day May 22nd, and US prescriptions for Chantix have declined almost 33 percent since January 18th, when the suicide link to Chantix first surfaced. Norman Edleman, Chief Medical Officer for the American Lung Association in New York, has been quoted as saying doctors are now only prescribing Chantix to their patients as a treatment of last resort, after everything else has failed.

Meanwhile, the news on Chantix doesn't get any better. The ISMP, a not-for-profit group based in Horsham, revealed this week that after reviewing data from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Chantix was found to have generated more adverse events in the fourth quarter of 2007 than any other drug, period.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that Pfizer has lost about 30 per cent of its value since 2006, when the manufacturer halted testing on its intended replacement of Lipitor, which is easily the world's top-selling drug. The cholesterol pill torcetrapib was experimental, but testing allegedly didn't go well. Then, in 2007, Pfizer pulled Exubera, an inhaled insulin product for diabetics and once hailed as a blockbuster itself, after slow sales.

Chantix was obviously intended to bolster the company's coffers at a critical time, but that appears to be something of a question mark now. According to John Boris, an analyst with Bear Stearns in New York, sales of Chantix were originally forecast to rise 31 percent to almost $1 billion this year. However that forecast has been radically revised the other way, with revenue expected to drop five per cent this year. While it was not clear whether the analyst was referring to overall revenue for the company, or revenue generated by Chantix alone, the fact remains this is not a good time for Pfizer, just as it isn't for many users entrusting their desire to quit smoking, to Chantix.

"It is another nail in their coffin," said Michael Obuchowski, an analyst with Altanes Investments in New York, in comments appearing this week in the Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey. "(Pfizer) should be desperately trying to figure out how they will replace the revenue they are going to lose in just a few years."

In the meantime, the legal community is gearing up for a fresh round of Chantix lawsuits, while attempting to determine whether or not Pfizer may have failed to disclose information on adverse effects it may have had in its possession. Such is the depth, and breadth of serious adverse effects associated with the drug that targets the brain in beating the effects of nicotine dependence.

While these appear to be difficult days for Pfizer, users of Chantix have been having intense struggles of their own, struggles outlined in a November, 2007 report from the FDA that highlighted the number of reports of suicide, or attempted suicide within days, to weeks after initiating Chantix treatment.

It is predicted that for those who did not succumb to Chantix, their struggles with the smoking cessation drug will not be in vain. Regardless of where the smoking gun is found to be in the coming months, and what it represents, more triggers will be pulled, figuratively, in the courts.