FDA: Thin Blood, Sour Stomach (AZN)(BMY)(SNY)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

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The FDA is routinely criticized for being a poor steward of drug research and pharmaceutical side effects. The agency proved once again why much of the criticism is justified.

The FDA today said that two drugs, each of which has been on the market for many years, react badly when taken together. It is a wonder it took so long to figure this out since each of the drugs is very widely used.

Prilosec, an antacid marketed by AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN), hurts the effectiveness of Plavix which is the world’s most prescribed blood thinner, Plavix is marketed by Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE:SNY) and Bristol-Myers (NYSE:BMY).

Plavix is essential to the treat heart attack victims, patients with vascular stents, and also helps prevent blood clots in the brain. Any drop in its effectiveness is likely to cause real danger to many patients using Plavix.

The FDA is slow to market with news, once again.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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