Advertise With UsAdvertise on our extensive network of industry websites and newsletters.
Get the PBR newsletterSign up to our free email to get all the latest PBR
news.A team of scientists led by a University of Bern senior research fellow Sven Trelle, funded by the Bern-based Swiss National Science Foundation, has analysed seven generic painkillers to conclude that commonly prescribed pain-easing medicines which fight inflammation are linked to increased risk heart attack and stroke.
Subscribe to our email newsletter
The analysed drugs include Pfizer’s Celebrex, Merck’s Vioxx, Novartis’s Prexige, the experimental etoricoxib, ibuprofen, and diclofenac.
Naproxen and Ibuprofen (sold as Advil) were found to be the least and the most harmful respectively.
The analysis bolsters research linking painkillers to health hazards.
In the past, Vioxx from Merck was withdrawn in 2004 because of heart risks, and Novartis’ Prexige failed to win US approval in 2007 after Australian regulators voiced their concerns about the product’s potential to cause liver damage.
The current analysis found that both Vioxx and Prexige were linked to twice the risk of a heart attack compared with a placebo.