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EMA Investigates French Drug Company

A French pharma company faces questions from Europe's regulatory agency about the safety of its osteoporosis drug.

Written byEdyta Zielinska
| 1 min read

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WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, INFROGMATION

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced that it is further investigating the embroiled French pharmaceutical company Servier, this time over the safety of its osteoporosis drug. The company had come under fire in late July for its diabetes drug Mediator, whose wide off-label use as a weight loss drug was connected with an estimated 2,000 deaths.

In 2007, the EMA issued warnings regarding Servier's osteoporosis drug Protelos regarding a skin condition that sometimes occurred as a side-effect, and cited the company for flaws in its adverse event tracking-system, the French newspaper Libération reported last week. As a result of a 2009 follow-up, France's regulatory agency (AFSSAPS) found major problems with the company's manufacturing practices that raised concerns about all of Servier's drugs. While the EMA ...

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    Edyta Zielinska was a senior editor at The Scientist from 2007 to 2013, where she worked closely with scientific illustrators to develop accompanying graphics to illuminate complex concepts. 

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