Acomplia's Story in the US Market
The History
Up until 2008, Rimonabant and its brand cohorts were doing so well across the globe. People who had been struggling to lose weight, people who HAD to lose weight to LIVE, were seeing the lbs fly off using medicine, diet, and exercise. Moreover, many were declared healthy again. Then in 2008, as a result of clinical testing, the drug was suddenly pulled from the market.
The fear was that 5 patients involved in testing had committed suicide due to a side effect of their weight loss pill.
The brands for and the generic Rimonabant work by stopping signals from reaching the receptor in the brain that tells you that you are hungry. It also seemed to stop drug addiction cravings, helping many quit smoking and stay off of alcohol and cocaine. It still does in most of the world.
Just not in the United States.
The problem was, psychiatric side effects were cropping up in test subjects. When a few patients wound up taking their own lives to escape from spiraling depression, it seems only right to pull the drug from the market.
The Future
It is undeniable that the drug was doing loads of good before it was made unavailable in American pharmacies, though it can still be purchased online. A new report claims that perhaps it should have continued to do that good, and would have, had researchers bothered to perform genetic testing on its subjects.
Researchers at Scripps Translational Science Institute surmise that there is a clear genetic link with patients who experienced a negative impact on their mental state, and perhaps the scientists should have found out more before getting rid of a potential trump card in obesity and drug addiction treatments.
Genome sequencing has made entirely new treatments possible, but, perhaps as importantly, it has made it easier to know which treatments will work on certain people. If doctors could identify patients with a high risk of experiencing the emotional deterioration, the risk could be neutralized completely and a powerful tool could be made available for doctors and patients alike.
The other side effects of Acomplia, the specific brand drug being tested, were light enough (there seemed to be no difference in heart complications between the patients taking Acomplia and those on the placebo) that the drug truly was remarkably helpful in widespread use. Of course, it may have turned out that too many people would be genetically predisposed to mental health complications, but we are unlikely to find out.
Aside from reducing weight, Acomplia also helped patients to better maintain normal blood sugar levels and improve blood fat content for triglycerides and good (HDL) cholesterol. This means that diabetics and those with high blood pressure may also have been helped, especially if they suffered from obesity.
While nothing malicious was done of course, and the government only acted in the interests of protecting the health and well-being of its citizens, a mistake may have been made and, if not for the wonders of the internet, a drug made completely unavailable to the one population who needs it the most - Americans, the last of the world's most widespread obesity epidemic.
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