About New COPD Drug Spiriva

About New COPD Drug Spiriva

New York-based Pfizer recently launched Spiriva in Europe with Boehringer Ingelheim, a privately held German firm that developed the drug. The companies last December asked the FDA to approve Spiriva and are expected to launch it early next year in the United States if it gets the green light.

Spiriva, a once-daily treatment, has proven more effective in clinical trials than Boehringer's Atrovent, an inhaled drug given three times a day that has been the standard of care for COPD for over a decade. Both medicines help open the airways by blocking action of the brain messenger chemical acetylcholine.

Thirty-one percent of patients taking Spiriva saw an improvement in their shortness of breath, compared with 18 percent for Atrovent. The Spiriva patients cited improved quality of life compared with the older Boehringer drug. Patients taking Spiriva also had 44 percent fewer hospitalizations than those who had been given a placebo.

Spiriva has also proved superior in trials to GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Serevent, a long-acting "beta agonist" drug usually taken for asthma, but used by many doctors to treat COPD. Beta agonists open the airways by stimulating receptors to certain types of nerves in the lungs.

Other current COPD treatments include Novartis AG's Foradil, another long-acting beta agonist, and albuterol, a short-acting beta agonist sold by generic drugmakers.

The most common side effect of Spiriva was dry mouth, which was seen in about 16 percent of patients taking it in clinical trials.

(Compiled from various press releases.)

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