AIDS Drug Scam: Scumsucking Bottom-feeders Caught

[Luke T.]

Okay, here's the deal. This company, SERONO, invents a drug (Serostim)in the 90s which is supposed to offset the "wasting" that comes with AIDS. Weight loss.

Well, drug cocktails for AIDS in the 90s had improved to the point that wasting was not that big a problem any more. So this company SERONO invents a voodoo-like machine which measures the "body cell mass" of AIDS patients and tells them they are suffering from wasting, even if they have not lost any weight!

And to spur sales, they give all-expense paid vacations to Cannes, France to doctors who prescibe it. As a result, 85 percent of the prescriptions sold by SERONO were unneccessary. At a cost of more than $21,000 a treatment!

This is the third biggest health-care fraud case in U.S. history.

Five employees blew the whistle. SERONO will now have to pay a fine of $704 million, $52 million of which will go to the whistleblowers. So there's some incentive for ya.

Link1 (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/BUSINESS/10/18/serono.drug.reut/)

Link2 (http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=107557).

Link3 (http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=33152)

[Rolfe]

I thought this company had already gone bust once. I know next to nothing of them as pharmaceutical merchants, but they once had a subsidiary that performed veterinary hormone analysis. This went belly-up and spawned two offspring - one lab run by the people who paid actual money for that particular asset, and another run by the original staff of the Serono outfit, who branched off on their own and took a fair slice of the clientele with them. I was under the impression that the entire performance was triggered by the collapse of the parent company.

Hmmm. Can't remember when this happened.

Rolfe.

[Dr. Imago]

Funny. They still haven't taken down the promotion of this product on their website.

serono.com/products/metabolism_03.jsp?major=1&minor=2

Hmmm... guess whatever injuction they received did not require them to stop promoting it. (By the way, I'm currently treating two HIV/AIDS patients while on our medicine service this month and we're definitely not using the stuff.)

-Dr. Imago

[Luke T.]

Funny. They still haven't taken down the promotion of this product on their website.

serono.com/products/metabolism_03.jsp?major=1&minor=2

Hmmm... guess whatever injuction they received did not require them to stop promoting it. (By the way, I'm currently treating two HIV/AIDS patients while on our medicine service this month and we're definitely not using the stuff.)

-Dr. Imago

I can't get your link to work.

However, it is my understanding that the drug may actually work. It is just that is was being prescribed to patients who didn't actually need it. The fraud was in the machine which supposedly analyzed "body cell mass".

[Deetee]

Okay, here's the deal. This company, SERONO, invents a drug (Serostim)in the 90s which is supposed to offset the "wasting" that comes with AIDS. Weight loss.

The company itself did not invent the drug, merely refine it. It is a form of recombinant human growth hormone, which has in other guises been used for decades (and used to be purified from pituitaries, meaning recipients in the past were at risk of infection with agents causing CJD). It's role is primarily to offset the wasting that can come with AIDS therapy, and not with AIDS itself.

Well, drug cocktails for AIDS in the 90s had improved to the point that wasting was not that big a problem any more.
The wasting is a form of lipoatrophy, which is fairly specific to patients on long term HIV treatment - so it is a specific type of "adverse drug reaction" that is being treated, not AIDS itself. As HIV therapies have become more widespread, the wasting has actually become more common, not decreased.

So this company invents a voodoo-like machine which measures the "body cell mass" of AIDS patients and tells them they are suffering from wasting, even if they have not lost any weight!

And to spur sales, they give all-expense paid vacations to Cannes, France to doctors who prescibe it. As a result, 85 percent of the prescriptions sold by SERONO were unneccessary. At a cost of more than $21,000 a treatment!


Quite astounding the lengths to which they are prepared to go to in order to get their drug used. It makes one wonder what else may be going on. I recall some of the trials in the UK for growth hormone - they were in London, and performed by people of undoubted integrity (personal knowlege).

Serostim actually works, though whether anyone will bother trying to use it now, even when it is genuinely indicated, is doubtful....

[Luke T.]

The company itself did not invent the drug, merely refine it. It is a form of recombinant human growth hormone, which has in other guises been used for decades (and used to be purified from pituitaries, meaning recipients in the past were at risk of infection with agents causing CJD). It's role is primarily to offset the wasting that can come with AIDS therapy, and not with AIDS itself.


The wasting is a form of lipoatrophy, which is fairly specific to patients on long term HIV treatment - so it is a specific type of "adverse drug reaction" that is being treated, not AIDS itself. As HIV therapies have become more widespread, the wasting has actually become more common, not decreased.

Thank you for the clarifications and corrections, Deetee.

Serostim actually works, though whether anyone will bother trying to use it now, even when it is genuinely indicated, is doubtful....

Exactly. First, taking advantage of people with a fatal disease, robbing them of 21 grand. That alone makes them scumsucking bottom-feeders. A fine isn't enough, IMHO. There should be jail time. Second, smearing a good drug that can help people who actually do need it with a scandal.

[casebro]

The wasting is a form of lipoatrophy, which is fairly specific to patients on long term HIV treatment - so it is a specific type of "adverse drug reaction" that is being treated,...

Sounds like a potential obesity treatment to me.....

[Deetee]

Sounds like a potential obesity treatment to me.....

I don't think you'd want to take HIV meds just to try and get slim!
The metabolic syndrome they can sometimes induce is known as lipodystrophy - basically fat moves around. Face and limbs can become depleted of subcutaneous fat (atrophy), but it is preserved and even added to around the trunk area, so the result can look like a kids drawing of a human - a round body with stick legs/arms.

[casebro]

I don't think you'd want to take HIV meds just to try and get slim!
The metabolic syndrome they can sometimes induce is known as lipodystrophy - basically fat moves around. Face and limbs can become depleted of subcutaneous fat (atrophy), but it is preserved and even added to around the trunk area, so the result can look like a kids drawing of a human - a round body with stick legs/arms.

aww nuts. I already look that way.

[Dr. Imago]

I can't get your link to work.

http://www.serono.com/products/metabolism_03.jsp?major=1&minor=2

Lisa Simpson fixed my account (merged the old with the new) so I can now post URLs.

-Dr. Imago

[Dr. Imago]

Interestingly enough, I'm on the Internal Medicine service this month. I've actually had two AIDS patients (not just HIV+... AIDS, which is getting more unusual with the HAART). One had a CD4 count of 81 and came in with infective endocarditis. The other had a recurrence of a B-cell lymphoma. Both are AIDS complications.

Neither had the wasting syndrome. Both were IV drug abusers who were still refractory to therapy. What was interesting is that never was this Serono drug mentioned. Neither were on it. One had quit HAART, or not used it properly (which created some drug resistance)... it was hard to tell due to the fact that she was such a poor historian and was also heavily "involved" with the judicial system, if you catch my drift. I don't think it's probably all that commonly used among non-AIDS/HIV specialists. The service I'm on is a general medical service in a teaching hospital, and we certainly treat AIDS/HIV patients. As well, we involve the Infectious Disease service who consults on our patients care.

The sad fact is that many of these patients simply cannot afford these drugs, and they do not have insurance. I imagine that those who actually do get them are in the minority, at least from what I've seen both in my internship and since medical school. Besides, as was stated above, the HAART regimen is doing really well (for the most part) at staving off end-stage AIDS with the concomitant infections and wasting syndromes. It's really only those patients who are unlikely to take the HAART, and thus less likely to stay on other such products like Serostim, anyway... and that certainly isn't Serono's target patient population.

-Dr. Imago

[ysabella]

Wow, deplorable story.

I've read that drinking whey protein shakes has helped prevent wasting in some AIDS and cancer patients. Easy to digest, cheap protein - good stuff.