Side Effects May Include Bloated Profits

Incredibly, a drug that was supposed to reduce risk of heart attacks and strokes is raising the blood pressure of pharmaceutical executives and stockholders.

Vytorin, a cocktail of Merck & Company’s Zocor and a new kind of cholesterol fighter, Schering-Plough’s Zetia, is a huge seller. It is also a big zero, according to an industry-sponsored trial.

The trial focused on whether Vytorin would be better than Zocor alone on limiting arterial plaque buildup — the hardening of the arteries long associated with heart attacks and strokes. The trial showed no difference, although Vytorin is better at lowering LDL, aka bad cholesterol.

The results fly in the face of the conviction that lowering LDL invariably reduces atherosclerosis and risk of heart attacks and stroke. It was stunning news, particularly for doctors who prescribed it in place of older, less expensive statins like Zocor, which has gone generic. It was stunning news for stockholders — particularly those with stakes in Schering, said to rely upon the pills for two-thirds or more of its profit.

But it should have been old news for the executives: Congress and state officials in New York are investigating why it took almost two years from the end of the trial to get the results out to doctors. In the meantime, some $200 million has been pumped into marketing the new drugs that combined reduced patients’ and insurance companies’ wallets by $5 billion last year.

The message for doctors: Older statins have a better cost- benefit ratio for patients who can tolerate them. The message for policy-makers: Timely data for doctors is better for the public’s health than an information vacuum filled with glitzy ads pitched to patients.

(c) 2008 Albuquerque Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.