The New York Times On Lipitor Vs Simvastatin Study

11-04-2007 | Categories:

Follow-up To AlignMap Post On Study Claiming Switch From Lipitor To Generic Is Dangerous

Rather than sacrifice blogging’s inherent advantage of timeliness, I’m deferring the promised conclusion and summary post on the Personal Medication Record to link to and comment on this 3 November 2007 New York Times article, Maker of Lipitor Digs In to Fight Generic Rival, by Stephanie Saul And Alex Berenson, which addresses the Pfizer-sponsored statin research project study that was the focus of the 8 September 2007 AlignMap post, Lipitor Would Rather Fight Than (Have Patients) Switch

The article from the Times recapitulates much of argument I made in the earlier blog entry sans my lengthy exposition of some of the study’s problematic methodological issues. The crux of the New York Times essay is congruent with the final line of my post:

The most useful lesson from this study may well be the reminder that certain medical research projects may have as much to do with market share as with morbidity and mortality.

I’ve included a short excerpt of the opening of the article but the full piece is available without charge at ~ Maker of Lipitor Digs In to Fight Generic Rival ~

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It is shaping up to be the biggest shift yet to a generic drug, potentially saving the nation $2 billion a year or more in prescription costs. And scientists and doctors say that for most of the 16 million people in America who take drugs to reduce cholesterol, the low-priced alternative will work as well as the name-brand medicine — Lipitor, which is made by Pfizer and is the nation’s most widely prescribed drug. While Lipitor itself is not available as a generic, a very similar drug made by Merck, Zocor, lost its patent protection last year. The generic version of Zocor, simvastatin, is now much cheaper than Lipitor, leading insurers to press doctors and patients to switch.

But Pfizer is not letting its flagship drug go down without a fight. The company has mounted a campaign that includes advertisements, lobbying efforts and a paid speaking tour by a former secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Pfizer is also promoting a study — whose findings many experts are questioning — that concluded that British patients who switched to simvastatin had more heart attacks and deaths than those who remained on Lipitor.

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