Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

Paracetamol poisoning could be a thing of the past if an agreement announced
last week bears fruit. The British Technology Group, which owns the patent
on a ‘safer paracetamol’ that makes death from an overdose extremely unlikely,
has sold a manufacturing licence to the British drugs company Penn Pharmaceuticals.

The BTG bought the patent on the safer painkiller in the 1970s. In Britain,
BTG sold a single licence to Sterling-Winthrop, but its version of the drug
is not widely used and is not on the Department of Health ‘white list’ of
drugs approved for NHS prescription.

Penn intends to convince the health department to include its version
of the painkiller on the white list, and then make it available over the
counter in chemists. ‘Poisons units are asking why they are still treating
so many hundreds of cases of paracetamol poisoning when prevention is already
possible,’ says Roger Jones, Penn’s managing director.

Paracetamol is broken down in the liver, leaving behind a highly toxic
metabolite. If taken in too large a quantity – deliberately, or by accident
– the metabolite can kill. In 1974, Andre McLean of University College Hospital
in London patented a combination of paracetamol and the amino acid methionine.
Methionine increases the level of glutathione in the liver, which inactivates
the toxic metabolite. If the combined drug is taken in overdose, it simultan-eously
administers the antidote.

The BTG’s initial enthusiasm for the drug fizzled out when it found
that companies did not want to sell the safer version for fear that publicity
about the new drug would damage the ‘safe’ image of paracetamol.