NEW YORK (AP) — Drugmaker Pfizer is stopping a late-stage study of its second-best selling drug, Lyrica, as a possible treatment for a nerve pain in HIV patients.
The world's largest drugmaker was studying the drug in patients with HIV neuropathy, which is nerve damage characterized by burning pain that usually starts in the feet.
Pfizer says an early analysis of study data shows that pain symptom improvements were nearly identical between patients treated with Lyrica and those treated with a placebo.
Lyrica is already approved in the United States to treat diabetic nerve pain, pain after shingles, fibromyalgia and for some seizures in adults with epilepsy. It brought in $955 million in sales in the first quarter for the New York drugmaker, behind only cholesterol fighter Lipitor's $1.4 billion.
