Word: lipitor
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Pfizer's way, they may end up adding a pill that raises HDL, the good cholesterol that helps keep arteries clean. A study in the current New England Journal of Medicine reports that the drug torcetrapib boosted HDL levels 46%. When it was combined with the LDL-lowering drug Lipitor, the results were even more dramatic: HDL levels rose 61%, and LDL fell even more than it did with Lipitor alone. But will raising HDL levels mean lower rates of heart disease and fewer deaths? That's what Pfizer hopes to show. If it does, both the drug company...
...first glance, you might think that the study released last week comparing the cholesterol-lowering drugs Lipitor and Pravachol--funded by Pravachol's maker--produced a surprise slam-dunk for Lipitor. After all, the trial of more than 4,000 patients showed that those who started taking Lipitor instead of Pravachol within a week or so after being hospitalized for a heart attack or unstable angina had a 16% lower rate of getting worse--dying, suffering a subsequent heart attack or stroke, or requiring bypass surgery. But the seemingly obvious conclusion is not necessarily the right one. Here...
Pravachol and Lipitor are both statins--a group of cholesterol-lowering drugs that are widely used in the treatment of heart disease. Doctors have long known that Lipitor lowers the level of LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, more than Pravachol does. Both groups of patients in this study--to be published in the April 8 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine but released a few weeks early--had their LDL levels reduced below 100 mg/dL--the target currently recommended by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for folks who have heart disease or diabetes. The Lipitor...
What experts take from this is not that Lipitor is superior but that the official LDL targets may not be low enough. "LDL lowering is the name of the game," says Dr. James Cleeman, coordinator of the National Cholesterol Education Program at the NHLBI. "I don't think you can conclude that one brand is better than the other." Cleeman's group, which sets U.S. guidelines, is preparing a scientific paper to explain how doctors can best use the latest results in their practice...
...with minimal FDA oversight and then shipped to the U.S. In 2002 pharmaceutical imports to the U.S. totaled $40.7 billion, a nearly fivefold increase from $8.7 billion in 1995. Seventeen of the 20 largest drug companies worldwide now make drugs in Ireland, largely because of tax incentives. Pfizer's Lipitor for cholesterol, the largest-selling drug in the world, is made in Ireland. So too is Viagra, for erectile dysfunction. AstraZeneca's Nexium, for heartburn and acid reflux, comes from Sweden, France and other countries. TAP Pharmaceutical Products' Prevacid, another brand prescribed for heartburn and acid reflux, comes from Japan...