Pfizer Likely to Survive Skid in Celebrex Sales

The future of Celebrex, the best-selling arthritis pain medicine, may be determined as much by Dr. Jason Faller and other doctors treating arthritis patients as by federal regulators.

Even if regulators do not force Pfizer to withdraw the drug because of heart attack risks, its prospects are dim if doctors stop prescribing as heavily as they have in recent years.

Faller, chief of the arthritis clinic at Roosevelt Hospital in New York, said that about 25 percent of the clinic's patients now took Celebrex. Over time, he predicted, that number will probably fall to about 5 percent.

"Certainly I will be disinclined to start patients anew on the drugs," Faller said. Still, he said that Celebrex and Bextra, a similar arthritis drug also made by Pfizer that has also raised heart attack concerns, were useful alternatives for some patients who were not helped by older over-the-counter drugs like ibuprofen.