Pioglitazone increases cancer risk but many manufacturers

On August 4, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated that the use of pioglitazone for more than one year may increase the risk of bladder cancer. Pioglitazone is an important component of diabetes drugs and is widely used in China. Interviewers learned that there are 12 Mainland enterprises producing the drug, with as many as 54 varieties, of which there are a number of well-known pharmaceutical listed companies such as Hengrui Pharmaceutical and Conba.

Interviewers inquired about public information and learned that pioglitazone involved some diabetes products produced and sold by Hangzhou Zhongmei Huadong Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a 75% subsidiary of Huadong Medicine Holdings. According to the announcement of Huadong Medicine, the sales revenue of Pioglitazone tablets in 2010 and January-June 2011 was equal to 3% and 3.26% of the total sales revenue of U.S. East China Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. respectively.

The production of pioglitazone is also known as Neptunus Bio, but in its annual report last year, it did not disclose the contribution of pioglitazone to the company's performance. Interviewers inquired about the website of the State Food and Drug Administration, and learned that there are 12 companies that produce the drug, with as many as 54 varieties. The top five sales of Beijing Taiyang Pharmaceutical in the market "Itin", Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceutical "Ruiqi", Hangzhou Zhongmei Huadong Pharmaceutical "Caspin", Tianjin Takeda Pharmaceutical "Icotop" "Bei Tong Ning" of Sichuan Baoguang Pharmaceuticals accounted for 98.27% of the total.

Guo Fanli, a research fellow in the pharmaceutical industry at China Investment Advisors, told reporters that due to the rigorous and cautious FDA's control of various indicators of the drug, the US FDA added the information on cancer risk to the label of pioglitazone, which will affect China's drug administration in the future. Departmental decisions.

However, the Diabetes Prevention Expert Consultation Committee of the Ministry of Health who had participated in the National Food and Drug Administration’s cancer-study conference on pioglitazone tells the interviewer that Dr. Hong Ding has found that although similar cases have appeared in China, it is not enough to prove that the use of pioglitazone will increase the risk of cancer.