Accutane Stopped
A major drug in the treatment of acute nodular acne was taken off the markets in late June 2009 due to the release of multiple generic drugs that cut the market share too low for the makers of Accutane to recover from. This is, of course, only one side of the story as to why the acne medication was taken off the market. Many other people believe it had more to do with the severe and adverse side effects that were reported with patients using Accutane, and not so much the amount of profit it acquired.
With profits up to $1.2 billion annually for the makers of the acne medication, seeing a dip in the share price doesn’t seem to register the end of the medication on a grand scale. The severe side effects, however, do. When Accutane first appeared in 1982, it was touted as being the last try medication to fight nodular acne, and it seemed to be working considerably well seeing as it had an 85% success rate with its users. There were 20% of users that reported the acne returned once they had stopped treatment, but this is to be expected with all medications on a large scale.
While almost all medications available to date have some kind of side effects reported with use, Accutane’s side effects are considerably severe. Lawsuits came into effect once people started to report IBD or Inflammatory Bowel Disease. IBD can cause severe abdominal pain and bouts of chronic diarrhea, weight loss, loss of appetite, and even Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. Juries have awarded over $33 million to people seeking lawsuits that have reported these serious conditions after taking the medication for the prescribed amount of time, usually 4 to 5 months.
Accutane is also extremely dangerous to take if you are pregnant and, as such, the makers came up with the iPLEDGE program that required women to have multiple birth control pills and signed contracts stating they would not get pregnant. On top of this, these women needed to have a pregnancy test before, during, and after their treatment.
