AstraZeneca Plc’s Crestor failed to beat Pfizer Inc.’s Lipitor in reducing the amount of plaque in arteries, a key cause of heart disease, in a study reported just weeks before cheaper copies of Lipitor will be available.
The research, reported today at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting, found that Crestor, at a cost of $5 a pill, reverses heart disease at about the same rate as the product sold by New York-based Pfizer, based on its ability to keep arteries open. Lipitor, the world’s best-selling drug, loses U.S. patent protection this month, and generic rivals may sell for less than a dollar after May.
The data suggest Lipitor and its copies will increase its dominance, said Roger Blumenthal, director of preventive cardiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The branded drug currently accounts for 54 percent of the market, according to a report by Andrew S. Berens, a Bloomberg Industries analyst in Princeton, New Jersey.
“It’s a win for Lipitor,” Blumenthal said in an interview at the Orlando, Florida, meeting. “It’s probably good for our patients and the health-care system because we won’t feel compelled to use the more expensive agent,” which lowers cholesterol levels more than Lipitor, he said.
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AstraZéneca: SATURN "eclipsa" a Crestor...
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“A lot of people were hoping the study would differentiate the two,” Navid Malik, an analyst with Matrix Corporate Capital LLP, said an interview today. “I don’t think it will now.”
The study, dubbed Saturn, compared the two drugs’ effect on plaque build-up in the arteries of patients with heart disease. Crestor showed a greater reduction in the volume of plaques, or fatty deposits, in the coronary artery, AstraZeneca said.
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