Interesting news from Pfizer today. It seems that some testing that was done shows that the cholesterol reducing medication Lipitor was very affective at increasing the blood and oxygen to the hearts of people with Chronic Angina.

Pfizer said Tuesday that a new study of its cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, 80 mg, showed unexpectedly significant reduction in myocardial ischemia in patients with chronic stable angina.

Myocardial ischemia is a condition defined by insufficient blood supply and oxygen to the heart. Angina is chest pain or discomfort that occurs when an area of the heart muscle doesn’t get enough oxygen-rich blood.

The New York-based pharmaceutical giant said Lipitor reduced the average number of ischemic events by nearly 70% and total duration of events by more than 60% from baseline to week 18 of the study, and sustained the effects until the end of the trial at week 26.

In 60% patients treated with Lipitor, all ischemic events were completely eliminated by the end of the study, the company said.

The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.

This is big news for a great many people in the population that have issues with Angina

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The United States’ leading anti-cholesterol drug, Lipitor, is now being price pressured by No. 2 Zocor, which became available in generic form in June.

Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs, a part of Consumers Union, estimates 20 million Americans take statins and about 60 percent of people who take brand-name statin drugs — Lipitor, Zocor, Vytorin and Crestor — can safely use one of three generics, USA Today reported.

Switching to a generic drug can substantially reduce employer health benefit costs. For example, the General Motors Corp. spends $200 million annually on statins for the more than 1 million people it insures. If all of GM’s statin users switched to a generic, GM’s costs will decrease to $82 million a year, the newspaper said.

New York-based Pfizer Inc., Lipitor’s manufacturer, claims studies show Lipitor is better at lowering cholesterol and the risk of heart disease and stroke, USA Today reported, noting Consumers Union suggests Lipitor for high-risk people.

At the American Heart Association conference yesterday a new study was released that showed that Pfizer’s cholesterol drug Lipitor, showed no significant reduction in “major coronary events” versus rival treatment Merck’s Zocor.

The five-year study found no statistically significant difference between Lipitor and US drugmaker Merck’s Zocor in reducing heart disease-related death, heart attack and cardiac arrest. Results of the study were presented on Tuesday at an American Heart Association conference.

The study did show a difference in some secondary targets. Lipitor was 13 per cent better than Zocor in reducing major heart events when strokes were included.

The comparison between Lipitor and Zocor is important for Pfizer. The world’s largest drugmaker continuously seeks to develop an extensive body of data that will persuade doctors that Lipitor, the biggest-selling drug in the world with $12 billion, yes that is Billion dollars in sales this year, is better than older, cheaper drugs from the same statin class of cholesterol reducers. Pfizer wants to preserve sales in the face of generic versions of Zocor, whose US patent expires next year.
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