The FDA is warning that there is an increased risk of death while using the drug Uloric. The official safety announcement states:
“[2-21-2019] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has concluded there is an increased risk of death with Uloric (febuxostat) compared to another gout medicine, allopurinol. This conclusion is based on our in-depth review of results from a safety clinical trial that found an increased risk of heart-related death and death from all causes with Uloric.
As a result, we are updating the Uloric prescribing information to require a Boxed Warning, our most prominent warning, and a new patient Medication Guide. We are also limiting the approved use of Uloric to certain patients who are not treated effectively or experience severe side effects with allopurinol.”
Plenty of Cases to Go Around
Uloric, made by Takeda Pharmaceuticals, was approved by the FDA in 2009 to treat gout—a form of arthritis characterized by sudden, severe attacks of pain, swelling, redness, and tenderness in the joints. It happens when a naturally occurring substance in the body, called uric acid, builds up. The drug is supposed to help lower uric acid levels in the blood. A very common form of inflammatory arthritis, Gout is believed to affect about 8.3 million Americans, or 4% of the U.S. population.
According to Pharmacy Times, medication to treat gout is very limited. In fact, Uloric was the first new drug in 40 years to treat the condition, and it has been aggressively marketed and prescribed to hundreds of thousands of patients. From 2014 to 2015, it was the 46th most prescribed brand-name drug in the U.S., with 1.3 million prescriptions. Takeda Pharmaceuticals reported $1.9 billion in U.S. sales from 2012 through 2017.
The prevalence of gout in America and an unmet need for treatments for this disease have led to the sheer amount of prescriptions of Uloric. This means plenty of people affected by the potentially life-threatening side effects, which equates to plenty of potential cases.
Are You Equipped to Take on Uloric Cases?
If your firm is taking on Uloric cases, or plans to in the near future, start by taking a moment to evaluate your client intake process. No matter how many leads your marketing team generates, you won’t see the end results you are looking for if your firm can’t capture and convert them into cases.
In order to make the most of your campaign dollars, you must bolster your in-house intake system. Achieve this by having a trained and capable team respond to calls and web inquiries instantly, collect the appropriate information in order to qualify cases, and take the lead from initial call to a signed contract.
If your firm isn’t equipped to handle a large-scale campaign, consider allowing a legal intake call center, like Alert Communications, to take care of everything. We have an army of intake specialists and systems in place to do all of this for you around the clock, so you don’t have deal with the hassle (and hefty costs) of hiring and training your own intake team. We’ll maximize your conversion potential and your overall return on investment.
