Pharmaceutical Executive-05-30-2007

A week and a day after the nation?s leading medical journal announced that Avandia poses a much higher heart attack risk than either its maker, GlaxoSmithKline, or FDA had previously reported, the media dustup has come nowhere near peaking. Meantime, analysts are already revising?downward?the damage to GSK?s blockbuster anti-diabetes drug in the face of what appears to be a rush to switch on the part of doctors and patients.

In an effort to clamp down on corruption, China sentenced its former top drug regulator to death on Tuesday.