NIH gives Wyeth access to data from Women's Health study. (Data on Combination Therapy).

The National Institutes of Health has given unpublished data from the Women's Health Initiative to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals at the company's request, even as WHI researchers continue to analyze the findings.

"We simply plan to evaluate it and determine how it enhances the risks or benefits" of hormone replacement therapy, Doug Petkus, a Wyeth spokesman, told this newspaper. Wyeth manufactures Prempro and Premarin, the two main drugs that were used in the WHI, a huge multicenter trial involving thousands of women.

The agency gave the data to Wyeth voluntarily after the pharmaceutical company filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain it.

The data that were obtained by Wyeth pertained to the combination hormone therapy arm of the WHI study that was discontinued in July, according to a spokeswoman from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, ...