Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Merck’s logic: 2 better than 1

It looks like Big Pharma is going to be literally crazy but launch new drugs. One example with Novartis has already described last week. Today we have another example of madness “special” logic – this time with Merck.  
Merck & Co. has halted development of a pill combining its diabetes drug Januvia with a generic version of the widely used cholesterol fighter Lipitor, citing unspecified business reasons.  
Top Logical Fallacies: Non sequitur A non sequitur (literally, does not follow) is a logical fallacy. Reasoning is said to be non sequitur if the conclusion does not follow from the premises or if a given reason for taking an action is completely irrelevant to taking that action. For example, the police chief’s reasoning was a non sequitur when he defended consulting a psychic “to help investigators crack the case” based on the premise that “we tried everything else and haven’t solved the case.” The fact that the case hadn’t been solved using traditional police methods is irrelevant to whether consulting a psychic is a method that should be used. The error in reasoning should become obvious if we substitute “pick a name randomly out of the phone book to identify the main suspect ” for “consult a psychic.” The fact that you haven’t solved the case using traditional methods provides no support for trying a non-traditional method. To justify trying a non-traditional method, one needs direct evidence that the non-traditional method has some merit. One often finds that non sequitur reasoning given by those trying to justify hiring a psychic or going to an “alternative” therapist is accompanied by another fallacy: the questionable assumption. For example, ”we had nothing to lose by consulting a psychic” or “I had nothing to lose by going to a homeopath” are questionable claims. You could be losing time and money that could be better spent. Via skepdic
The Whitehouse Station, N.J., company discontinued development of MK-0431E, which Merck had previously planned to submit for regulatory approval in 2014.
Merck spokeswoman Pam Eisele said Tuesday the decision isn't related to any safety concerns about the two drugs.
So the point was to combine 2 blockbusters in one pill – the success is guaranteed due to 2 drugs are more effective than 1. Right? 2 is more than 1, therefore 2 is better than 1, right? Sure, this logic sucks but I cannot find any better reason why Merck planned to combine these drugs in one pill. And what is stranger that it was not just an occasional sporadic decision – Merck is playing this crazy game very stubbornly:
It's the second time in recent months that Merck has stopped development of a combination drug that includes a cholesterol treatment. Merck also has abandoned MK-0524B, a drug that included niacin and simvastatin, saying market conditions had become less favorable.
Well, I thought it should be some borders for desperateness of Big Pharma for the development of novel drugs. And it is clear that the boarders are very wide!  
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