Pfizer to fund massive painkiller study

The Cleveland Clinic will direct a $100 million study to examine the safety and effectiveness of three popular painkillers--Celebrex, ibuprofen and naproxen--on people with heart problems. The worldwide, 20,000-patient study will begin enrollment early next year and could take researchers up to four years to complete. After the uproar over Vioxx and Bextra, the FDA has added black box warnings to many drugs, leaving a lot of people concerned and confused when it comes to choosing the best treatment. This study aims to clarify which treatments are the most safe and effective.

Pfizer is financing the $100 million study and is gambling that its drug Celebrex will come out on top. If it does, it could mean big bucks for the pharmaceutical giant since Celebrex is the only cox-2 inhibitor left on the US market. Though Pfizer is financing the study, the company will not be able to change how the results are reported, as Merck has been accused of doing with Vioxx studies.

- read this article from The New York Times

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