Surrogates under suspicion

摘要

Avandia (rosiglitazone) was one of the biggest names to rock the pharmaceutical industry last year. The diabetes drug -GlaxoSmithKline's second-biggest seller - had been fast-tracked through the approval system on the basis of a surrogate marker of lowering blood-sugar levels. In May, a meta-analysis showed that Avandia increased the risk of heart attacks1. Several other drugs in the same class of glitazone compounds have yielded similar results.