Pharma company AstraZeneca buried a clinical study that was unfavourable to one of its drugs, leaving an 8 year gap until the same results were revealed by another study, according to information released in US lawsuits.

Antipsychotic Seroquel was thought to be better than older drugs for years, while results from ‘Study 15’ were kept out of the public domain, the Washington Post reports. According to documents released as part of lawsuits against AstraZeneca, a company strategist praised efforts to put “positive spin” on “this cursed study”.

AstraZeneca notes that the US Food and Drug Administration had access to Study 15 when it approved Seroquel. A spokesman defended the Seroquel research to the Post, saying that the drug’s labelling noted the weight gain and diabetes.

Fierce Pharma says:

Stories about “buried” drug data have become shockingly common—or, we should say, so common that they’re no longer shocking. … On the heels of study-burying allegations against many of AstraZeneca’s rivals—Eli Lilly (Zyprexa), Pfizer (Neurontin), GlaxoSmithKline (Paxil), among others—the never-publicized, filed-away Study 15 seems like just one of a crowd.

That fact says more about jaded attitudes than it does about Study 15 itself…

See also

Previous Washington Post stories on Seroquel

A University of Minnesota psychiatrist’s role in the Seroquel story, in the Pioneer Press

The Great Beyond’s 2008 Interactive Pharma Scandal Story