Two U.S. pharmacy benefit managers, Prime Therapeutics and HealthTrans, have dropped GlaxoSmithKline’s diabetes drug Avandia from their national formularies, citing safety concerns.
Sales of the once-popular medicine have dropped sharply in the wake of a report linking it to a 43 percent higher risk of heart attack.
Avandia had a worldwide revenue of $3.2 billion in 2006, but now revenue in the United States is down 48 percent.