Content about Actos

NEW YORK — Generic drug makers Hospira, Sagent Pharmaceuticals and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries have launched generic versions of a chemotherapy drug made by Sanofi, the three companies said last month.


PRINCETON, N.J. — Ranbaxy Labs has launched an authorized generic version of a diabetes drug made by Takeda Pharmaceutical, Ranbaxy said Friday.

Ranbaxy announced the launch, through subsidiary Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals and under an agreement with Takeda, of pioglitazone hydrochloride tablets, an authorized generic version of Takeda's Actos. An authorized generic is a branded drug marketed at a reduced price under its generic name, typically by a third-party company operating under contract with the original branded drug's manufacturer.

PARSIPPANY, N.J. — Watson Pharmaceuticals is suing the Food and Drug Administration, alleging that an agency decision would improperly delay its release of a generic drug for diabetes, the company said Wednesday.

DEERFIELD, Ill. — The Food and Drug Administration declined to approve a drug made by Takeda Pharmaceutical, the drug maker said.

Takeda announced that the FDA issued a complete response letter for its regulatory applications for the Type 2 diabetes drug alogliptin and a combination pill that includes alogliptin and pioglitazone, the active ingredient in the drug Actos.

SAN ANTONIO — A drug for Type 2 diabetes made by Takeda Pharmaceutical taken in the morning prevented the disease from developing in nearly three-quarters of patients who were at risk, according to a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers enrolled 602 patients through the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio and seven other centers and administered Actos (pioglitazone) to them, finding that it prevented Type 2 diabetes in 72% of those whose obesity, ethnicity and other factors put them at risk for the disease.

The world of generic drugs has a big year ahead of it. Actually, it has a few big years ahead of it. But 2011 in particular carries a certain symbolic value as the year in which Pfizer, the world’s biggest drug maker, loses control of its patent for the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium), the world’s top-selling drug.