Ursa faces placebo allegations

By Nam Hyun-woo

Ursa, a popular over-the-counter drug, has sparked off controversy.

Ursa-maker Daewoong Pharmaceutical has filed 150 million won in compensation suits against a progressive pharmacists’ group, which disputes its effectiveness as a fatigue medication and argues it only helps digestion. The drug is exported to some 30 countries.

The Korean Pharmacists for Democratic Society (KPDS), released a book, titled “Drug Stories Even Pharmacists Didn’t Know,” last year.

KPDS claimed the medicine’s main ingredient, Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), is more close to digestion-helping substance.

Following the publication, a member of KPDS, Rhee Byung-do, appeared on a TV news show last September to make the claim.

Another member of the KPDS said, “Though the ingredient is more close to a digestive medicine, the drug maker misleads consumers with its catchy TV commercial.”

He said the commercial misleads consumers to believe that the hepatic drug Ursa is good for fatigue recovery because “fatigue equals liver problem.”

“In a number of medical journals, UDCA’s effect in improving bile secretion is acknowledged. However, it is hard to find that UDCA is good for fatigue recovery.”

Pharmacists have been calling for Daewoong to release data proving the ingredient is effective in fatigue recovery.

The drug maker rejected it and instead filed compensation suits against KPDS, Rhee, and the publisher of the book.

It demanded 50 million won from each of them, and to immediately suspend the book’s publication.

The Korean Pharmaceutical Association, the country’s largest group for pharmacists, released a statement Friday urging Daewoong to withdraw its suit and release objective data proving UDCA’s relation with fatigue recovery.

“If the company disavows our demand, we will regard this as a serious disrespect to 60,000 pharmacists in Korea and launch a collective action,” the association said in its statement.