Lilly Issues Warning on Zyprexa in Use in Elderly with Dementia

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that: "Zyprexa, a blockbuster antipsychotic medicine often used to calm elderly people with dementia, can increase the risk of strokes and death in those patients, according to a letter sent to physicians by Eli Lilly & Co. This warning echo's an announcement by Johnson & Johnson's on its own schizophrenia drug, Risperdal, back in April' 2003.

The Lilly letter said there was a "significantly higher" incidence of stroke among these patients, but didn't quantify it any further. The letter also said elderly patients in the Zyprexa group of the studies had a higher incidence of deaths of all types, 3.5% compared with 1.5% in the placebo group."

A Lilly spokesman stated that the use of Zyprexa in elderly with dementia accounts for a small portion, about 2%, of total sales. Zyprexa sales were $4.3 billion last year, or almost a third of the Indianapolis drug maker's annual sales.

A recent report in Reuters mentioned that in the UK a safety committee review "found there was around a three-fold increase in the risk of stroke when the medicines were used in this patient group, the Department of Health said in a statement.

The health department said approximately 30,000 patients aged 65 and over received Risperdal and 9,000 Zyprexa in the UK last year for the treatment of dementia."