Takeda Highlights Safety of Diabetes Drug in Ad Campaign

Takeda is showcasing the cardiovascular safety of its Type 2 diabetes drug Actos in a new ad campaign.

The ad does not mention by name a competing product, GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia (rosiglitazone maleate), which a joint FDA advisory committee voted in July to keep on the market despite its association with cardiovascular adverse events.

Avandia is not the target of the Takeda ad, Shay Weisbrich, general manager of diabetes marketing for Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, said. “Our reason for doing this is that this has been a very confusing summer for diabetes patients” due to a string of alarming news reports about the safety of diabetes drugs, she added.

As a result of these reports, some patients stopped taking their medicines, putting them at risk of serious, irreversible complications such as blindness and limb amputations. “The feeling was, let’s give a message of clarity and reassurance to patients,” Weisbrich said.

Takeda’s ad trumpets the Actos (pioglitazone HCl) study, which Weisbrich said makes the drug the only one among the thiazolidinedione drugs that can put such results on its label. The ad announces in a large font, “If you have Type 2 diabetes, Actos has been shown to lower blood sugar without increasing your risk of having a heart attack or stroke. Actos, an oral diabetes medication, has a major study in its product label, which showed that it did not increase the risk of having a heart attack or stroke.”