How a drug company's share goes up riding on the ADHD train

Many studies conducted or supported by drug companies are done sloppily with the goal of proving the drug's effectiveness. Often times stock investors bid up the share price after reading the headline proclaiming the effect. Few bother to read the actual experiment and data.

A headline from Medscape Today reads "Extended-release Metadoxine safe and effective for ADHD". TEVA pharmaceuticals and Alcobra Ltd did the study that purportedly showed the drug "improved ADHD symptoms scores compared with placebo." On the same day of 9/7/11, Teva's stock rose 2.5%. Bloomberg financials's Belinda Cao wrote "The success in Teva's new drug study is 'obviously a positive' according to Judson Clark", a stock analyst at Edward Jones & Co. in Missouri. So the study garnered the accolades of "success" and "positive", as though the drug is now a shoe-in.

But not so obvious yet. I tried to find a detailed report of the study on Teva's website but could only get a brief summary. From what could be fathomed, they used at least 7 assessment instruments and only one, the Investigator-rated CAARS-INV produced significant results, with secondary effects observed in another rating scale and insturment-measured brain waves of TOVA. We know ratings are notoriously subjective, but there was no description on whether the people who rated a patient's ADHD symtoms knew the patient was on the drug or not. Such knowledge would significantly affect the subjective ratings.

The TOVA and the Conner assessment for ADHD by the way are controversial and their correspondence to actual ADHD behaviors and to people who are not ADHD make them not a reliable instrument.

Somebody has made some money on that day!

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