Bloomberg is reporting tonight on a just-released British Medical Journal study that outlines the increased risk of blood 
clots from oral contraceptives containing desogestrel, like Schering-Plough's Marvelon and Cerazette. Here's a snippet:
. . . .Doctors should prescribe the birth- control pills that are the least likely to cause blood clots, according to a study of more than 3,000 women published today in the British Medical Journal.
Oral contraceptives containing levonorgestrel and a low dose of estrogen, such as Bayer AG’s Microgynon 30, were associated with the lowest risk of blood clots in the leg or lungs, researchers at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands found. Birth-control pills containing desogestrel, cyproterone acetate or drospirenone carried about 1.5 to 2 times the risk of clots, they found. . . .
Schering-Plough’s Marvelon and Cerazette pills, which contain desogestrel, generated $319 million for the Kenilworth, New Jersey-based company in the first quarter, IMS Health data show. . . .
This will not help keep revenue from that franchise north of $1 billion for all of 2009.
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