Our Review Summary
This story would not exist without the company news release. There was no conference where these results were released. There was no journal that published these results. The drug in question — an antibiotic called solithromycin — showed no clear benefits over existing drugs. Yet the story does not spell out for readers that this is as much marketing as it is science. We get that this story was meant for investors, but we found it in the health section of the Fox News website where it will be seen and shared by average readers. These readers deserve more than what this story delivered.
Why This Matters
Multiple studies have shown a rise in antibiotic resistance as previously stalwart drugs have proven less and less effective over time. On the whole, the world has done a terrific job in lowering rates of infectious diseases, but the threat of bacteria that can overpower antibiotics — especially for older people and people with compromised immune systems — remains real. New classes of drugs have been tried with varying degrees of success, and so companies like Cempra are trying to bring drugs to market that they hope will prove more effective and ultimately become big sellers. Because the only reason the world needs new antibiotics is because the old ones aren’t working as well as they used to, it’s important even in an investor-focused story like this one to make it clear whether a drug has been shown to have more benefits and fewer risks than existing drugs.
Criteria
Not Satisfactory
There was no discussion of costs in this story, only the effects on company stock values. The drug is not yet on the market, but, given that similar drugs are already being sold, a range of prices could have been offered. No doubt the analyst quoted in the story could have helped provide some new-drug-pricing predictions.
Not Satisfactory
If you read the story fast, you might think that the benefits are quantified. It talks about “the unparalleled rate” of “bioavailability,” meaning how quickly a patient’s blood absorbs the drug. But this is not a clear health benefit. It’s just part of the pathway on the way to a benefit. Ineffective drugs and even harmful drugs can absorb in the blood quickly or slowly. Does the drug actually control infections? Our primer on surrogates offers some great information about evaluating these indirect markers of treatment efficacy.
Not Satisfactory
The story mentions that the drug has an “impressive safety profile” and calls out its “low degree of gastrointestinal toxicity,” and it alludes to other drugs that were “associated with liver toxicity” and “linked with heart risk.” It does not provide any numbers to back up the claim that the drug’s safety profile is better than existing drugs.
Not Satisfactory
The story makes no mention of how many people were studied, where the study was published or who funded the study. It refers to the study as a “late-stage trial,” indicating that the drug must have passed through other trials and regulatory hoops to get to this point. If you read the press release about the study, you find out that the trial was a “double-blind, active-controlled global, multi-center trial that enrolled 860 adult patients with moderate to severe CAPB,” which stands for community-acquired bacterial pneumonia. You also find out that there are other trials underway. You find out that the trial was conducted by Cempra Inc., the company that makes the drug, and you find out — by omission — that the trial results were not published in any peer-reviewed journal.
Satisfactory
The story does not commit disease mongering.
Not Satisfactory
The story does not point out that the trial was conducted by the company that makes the drug. It only quotes one source outside the company, and that’s a market analyst who has a stake in whether the company does well or poorly.
Not Satisfactory
The story does make references to how the drug compares to other drugs on the market, but it does not present enough evidence to make fair comparisons. For example, it says that “Data showed solithromycin outperformed moxifloxacin by a slight margin.” This is misleading. The press release about the trial stated that the “early clinical response” — without explaining what that is — was 78.2% for solithromycin and 77.9% for moxifloxacin. If you round in both cases, you get 78%, and that would not be unreasonable because the press release stated that the rates could be as much as 5.5% lower or 6.1% higher, given the confidence interval. So, really, the story should have said the two drugs were statistically equivalent.
Satisfactory
The story makes it clear that the drug is in the clinical trial phase.
Satisfactory
The story makes it clear that Cempra is trying to enter a market with multiple, similar drugs.
Satisfactory
It’s questionable whether this story merited publication based solely on an announcement by the drug company. That said, the story takes a very confusing, jargon-heavy press release and attempts to make sense of it. It doesn’t get all the way there, but the story provides more context than the press release and explains a little bit better why readers — whether they are potential patients or potential investors — should care about this drug.
Total Score: 4 of 10 Satisfactory
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.