Phil Spector said in a civil trial deposition released Friday that he made the rounds of upscale restaurants but didn’t drink heavily or use illegal drugs on the night actress Lana Clarkson was shot to death in his mansion.

The documents were ordered released by the judge in Spector’s upcoming murder trial at the request of prosecutors. Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler noted that he had read the material and found “no smoking gun” in the testimony.

Spector, who said he has been diagnosed as manic depressive, said for the past eight years he had been taking anti-depressant medications prescribed for him by psychiatrists. Among them, he said, were Prozac, Neurontin and Clonopin. (more…)

Allison Bills was crying so hard she could barely talk. The 53-year-old, disabled Lake Park woman lives off a monthly Social Security check and suffers tw1o neurological disorders. She was on Medicaid until December, when the federal government switched her and 430,000 other poor Floridians to the new Medicare Part D program for prescription-drug coverage.

By Wednesday, she’d run out of Clonazepam and Neurontin, perhaps the most crucial, her pain doctor’s office said, of the nearly two dozen drugs she takes daily. “If I didn’t take these medications,” said Ms. Bills, who suffers seizures and chronic pain from fibromyalgia and reflex sympathetic dystrophy, “I couldn’t get out of bed. I’d die.” (more…)

Almost all medications carry some risk of side effects, but health care providers say that with proper communication and follow-up, off-label use can be everything from a chronic pain buster to a smoking-cessation aid.

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Safety concerns over major new drugs, litigation, and a huge increase in generic competition have taken their toll. And many of the drugs that made the U.S. companies so successful a decade ago, such as Pfizer’s epilepsy treatment Neurontin and antibiotic Zithromax, have lost their patents. Analysts predict the threat from generics will only get worse. According to IMS Healthcare, drugs worth $23 billion in sales will come off patent this year alone, rising to $34 billion in the next three years.

More at Business Week

Writers to the Lean Plate Club have blamed Neurontin for weight gain. More at the Washinton Post

While Lipitor sales growth slowed, demand for the Neurontin epilepsy treatment, previously Pfizer’s fifth-best selling drug, fell 71 percent on generic competition. Sales of the Zithromax antibiotic, the Diflucan anti-infective and the Accupril high blood pressure drug also declined. The four products had combined 2004 sales of about $6 billion.

More at Bloomberg

Dr. Zerbe is currently the Chief Executive Officer of QUATRx Pharmaceutical, Inc., an Ann Arbor, MI-based, venture-backed drug development company co-founded by Dr. Zerbe in 2000. Prior to this, Dr. Zerbe held several senior executive management positions with major pharmaceutical companies including Eli Lilly and Pfizer (formerly Parke-Davis). During his tenure at Eli Lilly, Dr. Zerbe’s clinical research and development positions included Managing Director, Lilly Research Center U.K., and Vice President of Clinical Investigation and Regulatory Affairs. He joined Pfizer in 1993, becoming Senior Vice President of Worldwide Clinical Research and Development. In this capacity he led the clinical development programs for a number of key products, including Lipitor® and Neurontin®.

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Marilyn Weiner needs 10 prescription drugs to help manage a long list of ailments: high cholesterol, hyperanxiety, needling pain in her feet and, the most serious, bipolar disorder.She used to rely on a combination of Medicare and Medi-Cal to pay for the drugs - assistance that allowed the retiree to get by on an annual income of less than $10,000. So she panicked when the Medicare drug plan that took effect Jan. 1 arbitrarily assigned her to a program that wouldn’t cover three of the medications, including Neurontin, which stabilizes her mood.

“I’d be climbing the walls” without the medication, said the 66-year-old Granada Hills resident. “I’d think I was flying - or I’d want to kill myself.”

More from LA Daily News

Readers of MSNBC learned that Neurontin can be used to quench the fires of vaginal burning.

Quote” Often, the pain is localized near the bottom third of the vulva and opening of the vagina (called the intraoitus). A doctor can test for areas of pain by touching the tissue with a cotton swab.

Just as there is no single established cause for vulvodynia, there is also no single therapy that works for those who suffer from it. Some of the treatments now being used include:—

Oral medications

• Tricyclic antidepressants (including Elavil, Pamelor and Norpramin) can help by decreasing the sensitivity of the nerves in the irritated area.
• Anticonvulsants (anti-epileptic medications) also seem to help: Neurontin and Tegretol have been prescribed with some success.

More at http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10546605/

A scientist at the University of Alberta has discovered a potential breakthrough for premature ejaculation, the most common sexual dysfunction in men, with the help of a drug usually used to treat anxiety disorder.

Dr. Pierre Chue, a psychiatry professor at the U of A, has found success in treating premature ejaculation (PE) with the use of gabapentin, better known by the brand name Neurontin.

“This disorder affects almost 40 per cent of males it is even more common than erectile dysfunction yet it is not talked about much and there has been very little research on it,” Dr Chue was quoted as saying.

The essential feature of the disorder is persistent ejaculation with minimal sexual stimulation before or shortly after penetration and before the person wishes it.

Currently, physicians prescribe medications that are known to influence receptors that delay ejaculation but these antidepressants also come with negative side-effects.

Dr. Chue is not certain how gabapentin works to improve PE but believes it has to do with the drug’s ability to increase aminobutyric acid (GABA), the most important inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain. Since there are currently no specific treatments for PE, the use of gabepentin to prolong ejaculation warrants further study, according to Chue, particularly for those men where other therapies are ineffective or poorly tolerated.

More at http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1011668,00500016.htm