Breaking down the dirty of specific pharma companies: #2 AbbVie

Today we learn about AbbVie.  This company is one of the MOST AGGRESSIVE pharma companies out there.  I have literally had pharma reps from this company attempt to coerce me into prescribing more of their medications than I do the competitors drugs.  They “request” so and so number of new prescriptions in the next 3 months or by end of the year or blah blah.  One of their reps told a colleague in another office that if they prescribed Vraylar to 10 new patients they (the rep) would win a trip.  Their reps have been banned from certain psych offices for this coercive behavior.  Their primary drug that I work with is called Vraylar.  Vraylar has been a good drug for a few of my patients.  I am not a fan of brand name pricy drugs.  Vraylar has the bonus of a long half life, so in patients who forget to take their meds or skip doses, they are not going to have symptom rebound as quickly due to the long duration it takes to decrease plasma levels of the drug.  It has the same dopamine and serotonin target action as other meds in this drug class.  They are really pimping this drug hard core now because the good ol FDA approved it for not only bipolar disorder, but also major depressive disorder.  They copied what their competitor Rexulti did with the FDA indication.  Gotta get as much money and as many patients on it as they can ya know.  There are far more patients “diagnosed” with depression than bipolar disorder, so it became a honeypot of potential prescriptions when the FDA approved it for major depressive disorder.  Other psychiatric medications made by AbbVie include Viibryd, Saphris, Namenda (the Alzheimers scam drug), Lexapro, Fetzima, Depakote, Celexa.  

AbbVie has tentacles deep into the mental health community, they pay psych providers a ton of money to travel the countryside and promote and speak to their drug’s amazing fantastic qualities.  Colleagues are raking in $50-120k per year speaking for AbbVie.  I get text messages from their reps on my days off reminding me how “useful” Vraylar is for major depressive disorder our “new clinical indication” and to be sure and start more people on it.  ON MY DAY OFF.  Because those text messages count as a “provider contact” for the rep, and they have to have so many of those per week.  On my day off though?  No.  Not ok.

AbbVie came to inception as a spin-off of Abbott laboratories, keeping the Abb of Abbott, and adding “vie” as latin for “life”.  AbbVie.  Prior to Takeda buying Shire, AbbVIe was in negotiations to buy Shire.  They backed out and it cost them 1.6 billion dollars to sever that relationship.  But no worries, they are in bed with plenty of other shady characters.  They acquired Allergan in 2019 and got into hot water for FTC antitrust violations in that deal and had to divest certain assets to get that deal to go through.  The controversial things they have done are drug price hikes.  Humira, used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and crohns disease was released in 2003.  AbbVie has since raised the drug's price by more than 470 percent, culminating in an annual supply now costing about $77,000. It has increased the price of Imbruvica, a drug used to treat mantle cell lymphoma and other cancers, by 82 percent since it launched in 2013. In 2022, it’s priced at $181,529. For patients taking four pills each day, it costs $242,039.  Wonder why healthcare is stupid expensive?! When pharma raises the price of a drug that much in 10 years, that doesn’t help matters.  They also have anti-competitive practice legal issues. AbbVie has been accused of using anti-competitive patent thickets to prevent potentially cheaper biosimilars from entering the market. It is currently caught up in a legislative battle against Icelandic Alvotech, which is trying to bring a Humira biosimilar to market. Forest Laboratories, a subsidiary of AbbVie, has been accused of using unlawful deals to prevent generic versions of its Alzheimer’s disease drug, Namenda, from entering the market.

In 2018, AbbVie agreed to pay $25 million to resolve allegations that it made use of kickback schemes to promote its cholesterol drug Tricor.

In 2020, AbbVie agreed to pay $24M to resolve allegations that it made use of kickback schemes to promote its rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira using "nurse ambassadors". What the heck are “nurse ambassadors?”  They were also left to clean up the issues that their acquisition of Allergan caused.  In July 2022 the company agreed to pay up to $2.37 billion to settle U.S. lawsuits against its Allergan unit over the marketing of opioid painkillers. As part of the settlement, AbbVie, denied any wrongdoing. The company's stock fell 6 percent following an earnings report that included a $2.2 billion charge related to the opioid deal.

And then we have covid.  AbbVie and their role in Covid and the agenda they have with covid: 

https://www.abbvie.com/our-science/covid-19-research-development.html

Over in Europe: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101005077   Here is what they are up to: The EU-funded CARE project is a coalition of 37 academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies and non-profit research organisations. The main consortium objectives are to develop therapeutics for the emergency response to the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic by drug repositioning and to address future outbreaks through drug and virus-neutralising antibody discovery. The potency and safety of the therapeutic drug candidates will be assessed in vitro and in animal models. Moreover, virus-neutralising monoclonal antibodies will be generated and immune markers will be identified. The final lead candidates will be advanced into Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials in humans.

Then the Covid R&D Alliance:

https://www.covidrdalliance.com

The COVID R&D Alliance brings together the world’s most experienced and accomplished leaders in therapeutic drug research and development, and the resources of their organizations to identify, study, and accelerate the most promising candidates across a broad spectrum of therapies and vaccines. Unconstrained by “how things have been done in the past,” companies with expedited programs already underway are finding synergies and advancing candidates faster than a single company, government, or NGO can alone. Over time, COVID R&D Alliance efforts will expand to identify and test early-stage candidates and antivirals. We are united in our goal: identify medicines, medicine combinations, and vaccines to prevent COVID-19’s deadly symptoms or stop them in their tracks. There is no time to wait.

Great.  Full throttle up to create whatever y’all want to without the usual fail safe protocols in place.  

AbbVie is also in bed with Harvard University to form a “research alliance” to combat “emergent viral diseases”.  

“Aug. 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) and Harvard University today announced a $30 million collaborative research alliance, launching a multi-pronged effort at Harvard Medical School (HMS) to study and develop novel therapies against emergent viral infections, with a focus on those caused by coronaviruses and by viruses that lead to hemorrhagic fever. (Oohhhh there is that zika/dengue/yellow fever connection YET AGAIN).  

This collaboration aims to rapidly integrate fundamental biology into the preclinical and clinical development of new therapies for viral diseases that address a variety of therapeutic modalities. HMS has led several large-scale, coordinated research efforts launched at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"A key element of having a strong R&D organization is collaboration with top academic institutions, like Harvard Medical School, to develop therapies for patients who need them most," said Michael Severino, M.D., Vice Chairman and President, AbbVie. "There is much to learn about viral diseases and the best way to treat them. By harnessing the power of collaboration, we can develop new therapeutics sooner to ensure the world is better prepared for future potential outbreaks." 

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas: immunology, oncology, neuroscience, eye care, virology, women's health and gastroenterology, in addition to products and services across its Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. 

As for ol’ Harvard, they are well networked to do all kinds of scientific shenanigans with multi million dollar government and pharma funding to scoop the poop all over their sandbox. 

About Harvard Office of Technology Development
Harvard's Office of Technology Development (OTD) promotes the public good by fostering innovation and translating new inventions made at Harvard University into useful products that are available and beneficial to society. Our integrated approach to technology development comprises sponsored research and corporate alliances, intellectual property management, and technology commercialization through venture creation and licensing. To further bridge the academic-industry development gap, Harvard OTD manages the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator and the Physical Sciences & Engineering Accelerator. For more information, please visit

https://otd.harvard.edu

About Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School has more than 11,000 faculty working in the 11 basic and social science departments comprising the Blavatnik Institute and at the 15 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Hebrew SeniorLife, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children's Center, Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Schepens Eye Research Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Spaulding Rehabilitation Network and VA Boston Healthcare System.  Do you see now how Universities and Hospitals work together with a billion dollar pocketbook to create and promote and market this stuff?  Pharma pays the universities to write “credible” journal articles about treatments but in reality it is pharma money PAYING for the trials, the papers to be written, the research…….all of it. 

I am going to do a separate post on who all makes up the “Covid R&D Alliance”.  It is an impressive list of government funded corruption.