GlaxoSmithKline shares fell as doctors avoid prescribing Avandia, their diabetes drug.

GSK suffers as doctors avoid allegedly risky diabetes drug - Guardian

Extract:

"GlaxoSmithKline took another hit yesterday amid signs that doctors in the US were avoiding its blockbuster diabetes drug Avandia after a study linked it to increased risks of heart attacks and death.

Data from ImpactRX indicated that the drug's share of the market for newly prescribed oral anti-diabetics in the US fell to around zero from about 10% in the two days after the study was published on May 21st. ImpactRX, a market intelligence firm, tracks the impact of pharmaceutical promotion on the prescribing behaviour of physicians in the US.

A Deutsche Bank note, which highlighted the information, said: "This reaction is far worse than we had anticipated and suggests that there could be as much as 22% downside risk to GSK's near-term earnings, suggesting that there is still further downside to GSK's share price."

It added that switching rates, or patients moving from one drug to another, were currently three times their usual level.

Shares fell accordingly, closing down 28p, or 2.1%, at £13.06, having tumbled 9% last week following publication of the study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Avandia is GSK's second-biggest selling drug, with sales around £1.4bn last year."

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