Patients taking a drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis may have three times the normal risk of developing a type of blood cancer, a drugs company has warned.
Centocor, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, is to send a letter to doctors on Monday warning them that patients taking its rheumatoid arthritis drug Remicade may have a higher risk of lymphoma, a blood cancer, than those not taking the drug,
the company said on Friday.
The warning, which will be added to the drug's package insert, means the drug's safety profile will more closely match that of rival drugs in the same class, Amgen's Enbrel and Abbott Laboratories' Humira.
The label will warn of a three-fold increase in the risk for rheumatoid arthritis patients taking the drug compared with the normal population, according to Centocor.
Reports in the United States today quoted experts as saying such outcomes are still rare, however, and that new drugs work markedly better than older ones.
ireland.comhas sought information from the Irish Medicines Board about the number of people taking Remicade here.
