Word: mevacor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Perhaps the most wondrous of Merck's wonder drugs is its newest, a substance called lovastatin that lowers cholesterol levels in the body by up to 40% and is marketed under the brand name Mevacor. Its development illustrates how Merck achieves breakthroughs via a combination of dogged lab work, close cooperation with FDA officials and a painstaking preoccupation with the safety of potential patients...
...Mevacor was no overnight phenomenon. In 1956 a team of Merck scientists discovered melavonic acid, a crucial chemical in the series of reactions that produce cholesterol. It was not until 1979, four years after Vagelos left his teaching post at Washington University in St. Louis to join Merck Labs as a high-ranking executive, that the company used new lab techniques he had suggested to build on that 23-year-old discovery and isolate lovastatin, which could inhibit the production of melavonic acid and block the buildup of cholesterol. Merck spent eight years assessing lovastatin's safety. By November...
...potential, Mevacor faces stiff competition. Lopid, a similar drug introduced in 1982 by Parke-Davis, had about 40% of the $190 million anticholesterol business when Mevacor appeared on druggists' shelves in September. Mevacor quickly grabbed a 33% share, trimming Lopid's to 20%. Then, in November, Parke-Davis came out with a study quantifying how Lopid dramatically cuts the risk of coronary heart disease. Lacking his own data, Vagelos refused to make similar assertions. By January the two drugs were running about even in sales. Analysts suggest, however, that once Merck has its own study in hand, the company...
...undeniable drawback to Mevacor, at least from the patient's standpoint, is its high price. A single 20-mg pill goes for $1.64, and a year's treatment can cost up to $3,000. Says Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the House Health and Environment Subcommittee: "Merck, like other big drug companies, has been raising prices dramatically and has introduced new drugs at shockingly high prices." Even drugs whose patents have long expired remain expensive. A bottle of 60 25-mg tablets of Merck's arthritis- fighting Indocin sells in New York City...
These days Vagelos is pushing his researchers to come up with the next generation of wonder drugs. In the testing stages: another cholesterol- lowering drug that could prove more potent and longer lasting than Mevacor; an anti-ulcer medication that has shown a high degree of effectiveness; MK- 538, a drug that holds promise of aiding diabetes sufferers. Merck will soon launch large-scale clinical trials for MK-906, which in preliminary tests shrank swollen prostate glands without bad side effects, alleviating a problem that vexes millions of men over 40. Other teams are studying cures for cataracts, arthritis, cancer...