-- The NEW Official Alizyme Thread! --

Looks like OTC sales of Xenical are rising fast but the better side effects profile of AZM's Cetilistat would be welcomed:
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Ads Duel Demand for Obesity Drug
04 December 2005
By GREG MEYLAN

Sales of the anti-obesity drug Xenical have almost doubled since it was made available without prescription six months ago.

The rise has been lauded by the distributor, but critics believe it is being marketed to people who don't need it. One advertisement encourages women to take the drug so they can wear clingy dresses in summer.

Xenical prevents the absorption of about a third of dietary fat, and was declassified in March for people who are clinically obese. It costs about $180 a month.

Roche pharmaceuticals spokesman Stuart Knight said that since Xenical was declassified, the average size of a person taking it had also fallen from a body mass index (BMI) of 36 to 34. BMI is a ratio of weight and height, and is used to indicate degrees of obesity.

Pharmacists who have attended a College of Pharmacists training course can sell Xenical without prescription to people with a BMI of more than 30. They must also have a face-to-face interview with the patient.

"We believe the reclassification from prescription medicine to pharmacist-only medicine has been a resounding success," Knight said.

Roche would not give figures but said sales were up 90% compared with prescription sales for the same period last year and said more than 3000 people had joined its free support programme this year - double the number for last year.

"As a prescription medicine, many New Zealand consumers saw Xenical as a last resort, and we don't believe it should be," Knight said. "It is a modern, clinically proven approach to managing your weight and will help you achieve 68% better results than dieting alone - why would you wait?"

Women's Health Action Trust policy analyst Kristen Berger said the trust was surveying women's experiences with the drug since it became available without a prescription.

"One women has spoken to us saying she felt it did not work for her at all because she was not a proper candidate, even though she was overweight."

Because the woman's diet was already low in fat, the drug had little weight loss effect.

"A conversation with her would have discovered she did not eat fatty food; the (pharmacist) diagnosis was not thorough enough."

Women's Health Action was also critical of the increase in advertising that accompanied the drug's change in status, citing an advert encouraging women to take it to look better for summer.

Christchurch School of Medicine general practice professor Les Toop said that of all the slimming drugs, Xenical had the "slight advantage of not being toxic". He believed the increase in sales would taper off.

"Some people will have to weigh up the cost with the benefit - the weight reduction is very modest for what you have to pay."

But the main problem, Toop said, was that the side effects tended to put people off.

"They say: God, I was on that, and it stunk the house out for three days," he said.

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia says that because Xenical's main effect is to prevent dietary fat from being absorbed, the fat is excreted and the person's stools become "oily, runny, and gassy", and bowel movements "may become frequent, urgent or uncontrollable".

But there was no evidence pharmacists were dispensing the drug to people who fell below the eligible weight range.

A Sunday Star-Times' attempt to buy Xenical at pharmacists, using people just below the threshold, failed after their height and weight were measured.

The Pharmacy Council had not heard of any problems or complaints about the dispensing of the drug.