Boehringer reacts to criticism

In our brochure „At any price? – Examination of the business behavior of Boehringer Ingelheim, Bayer und Baxter”, we reported on the controversial cardiovascular drug Mexiletin Hydrochloride (Mexitil®) from Boehringer Ingelheim under the heading “irrational”. This drug, the benefits of which have not been proven, (1) was taken from the German market in November 2009; in India, however, it was still being sold off one year later at the time when our brochure was printed (March 2011). Boehringer Ingelheim had informed us in a personal interview on 17th December, 2010 that the drug would no longer be offered although stocks were still being sold off in Indian pharmacies. That is what we reported in our brochure (p. 20).

Now, Boehringer Ingelheim confirms in writing, (2) that the sale of the product by the licencee Zydus Pharma has been finally stopped (3), although the manufacturing license of Mexitil is valid until December 2012.

This is the original text from Boehringer Ingelheim India:

We [Boehringer Ingelheim India, the author] can confirm that though Zydus has the manufacturing licence to manufacture Mexitil till December 2012, they are not marketing it at present in India. This has been confirmed in a file they have sent to our regulatory last year.
Also, we get regular sales data from them for the licenced products and we do not find Mexitil in that data for the last 3 years.
Therefore, we can formally confirm that Mexitil is no longer sold by Zydus in India.

(1) arznei-telegramm (2009) Evaluation: Mexiletin-HCl. Pharmaceutical database of 24.12.

(2) Boehringer Ingelheim (2012) Mail of 6th September to the BUKO Pharma-Kampagne

(3)Zydus is a strategic partner of Boehringer Ingelheim in India, The Economic Times (2004) Zydus Cadila, Boehringer Ingelheim sign pact for JV. Feb 13 http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2004-02-13/news/27415527_1_zydus-cadila-zydus-cadila-moraiya