Replies to post #151739 on Biotech Values

[iwfal]

Quite clear to me that the NYT article is about making a headline and therefore is emphasizing the side of the story that serves its target by telling the sad cases of patients who "bled to death" without giving all the details (were there other bleeding risk factors such as decreased renal function, low body weight, other concomitant medications that interact with Pradaxa like amiodarone, quinidine or verapamil etc), nor highlighting Pradaxa's advantages.

I would now agree with this FWIW - but note that the NYT article is also making a point about age. And on that topic they are probably correct - albeit using statistics that, as Dew correctly pointed out (and I would agree with more than I initially did), are exaggerated.

An interesting question is how representative of the atrial fib patient population was the Pradaxa registrational trial. The registrational trial intentionally targeted new patients as 50% of the enrolled population - who would obviously be younger than the average atrial fib patient. So given the bleeding problems that show up as the patients get older the registrational trial would make the risk reward for pradaxa vs warfarin look a lot better than it actually is.