By Andrew Zajac
Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON – The maker of Darvon and Darvocet announced Friday that it will stop marketing the widely used painkillers in the U.S. because of a new study linking the active ingredient in the drugs to serious and sometimes fatal heart rhythm abnormalities.
Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Newport, Ky., agreed to the ban at the request of the Food and Drug Administration, which also asked makers of generic versions of the drugs’ core compound, known as propoxyphene, to stop selling it in the U.S.
The decision to yank propoxyphene brings the U.S. in line with regulatory agencies in Britain and the European Union, which pulled the drug from the market more than a year ago.