More Than Half of Patients Treated for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia Receive Boehringer Ingelheim's Flomax as First-Li...( Less Than 20 Percent of Patients ...)

Less Than 20 Percent of Patients Diagnosed with the Disease Receive Pharmacotherapy Within a Year of Their Diagnosis, According to a New Report

From Decision Resources

WALTHAM, Mass., April 7, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that Boehringer Ingelheim's Flomax, also marketed as Astellas's Harnal in Japan, is the physician's drug of choice for newly diagnosed benign prostatic hyperplasia patients. Garnering more patient share than any other alpha blocker in first- and second-line therapy for benign prostatic hyperplasia, Flomax holds a 55.2 percent first-line patient share, compared with 12.4 percent for Sanofi-Aventis's Uroxatral, 4.8 percent for doxazosin (Pfizer's Cardura/Cardura XL, generics), and 4.3 percent for terazosin (Abbott's Hytrin, generics).

"Flomax stands out among alpha blockers thanks to its lower propensity to induce orthostatic hypotension, despite evidence of a high incidence of retrograde ejaculation and higher cost relative to generic agents in this class", said Nathan Calloway, analyst at Decision Resources. "However, rather than calling attention to Flomax's side-effect/safety profile, the highest proportion of urologists we surveyed (83 percent) rank familiarity with the drug as an important reason to choose Flomax over Uroxatral, whereas the largest percentage of primary care physicians (66 percent) believe that Flomax's reimbursement and formulary position is a key advantage over Uroxatral's."

The report entitled Treatment Algorithms in Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia also finds that slightly less than one-fifth (18.9 percent) of newly diagnosed benign prostatic hyperplasia patients receive pharmacological treatment within one year of their initial diagnosis. Primary care physicians and urologists surveyed suggest that patient reluctance to take drugs that are associated with sid
'/>"/>