The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) has concluded that Eli Lilly and Co.'s newly approved antidepressant Cymbalta did not trigger the suicide of a woman from Bensalem, Pa., who was taking part in a clinical trial. An FDA (news - web sites) investigation found that Cymbalta could not be linked to the death of Traci Johnson, who hanged herself with a scarf in Lilly’s Indianapolis drug-testing clinic. Johnson, a 19-year-old former Indiana Bible College student, killed herself Feb. 7 as she was participating in a study to see how high doses of the drug affected healthy volunteers. A memo about the closing of the FDA investigation of the suicide is part of the FDA’s Cymbalta approval package, the first part of which was sent to Lilly last week, an FDA spokesman said. It gives the drugmaker permission to start selling Cymbalta. The FDA declined to immediately release any written documents related to its investigation.
