The latest trial, scheduled to be presented Nov. 16, pits Merck’s drugs against Abbott Laboratories’ Niaspan, a modified form of vitamin B3 used to maintain healthy cholesterol levels. A win by Niaspan may discourage more doctors from prescribing Merck’s Vytorin and its component Zetia, said Steven Nissen, chief of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.s The results are likely to show that Niaspan unclogged arteries better than Vytorin, said Seamus Fernandez, a Leerink Swann & Co. analyst in Boston, and Larry Biegelsen, an analyst with Wells Fargo Advisors LLC in New York. Such a finding may trim revenue for Vytorin and Zetia by $800 million yearly, or 20 percent, Fernandez said. Since January, sales have declined by $480 million to about $3 billion.(Ver...)
So why is everybody so worked up?
Vytorin is actually a combination of two cholesterol drugs — the generic simvastatin and the patent-protected Zetia. Zetia and Vytorin are a huge franchise, with projected sales of around $4 billion this year. It’s clear that Vytorin can lower patients’ bad cholesterol (LDL) more than a statin alone can. (Statins are the popular class of cholesterol drugs that include simvastatin and Pfizer’s Lipitor, among others.)
But Vytorin has never been proven to lower patients’ risks of heart attacks, strokes or other major cardiovascular events more than a statin alone. What’s more, sales of the drug have been falling for nearly two years now, since a study found that Vytorin was no better than a generic statin at slowing the thickening of the arteries.
The decline of the drug has been widely chronicled. So even a minor study that adds to the previous negative findings could accelerate those declines. Some analysts say sales of Vytorin (and Zetia, which is also sold as a stand-alone pill) could fall another 20% next year, according to the Dow Jones and Bloomberg stories. (Ver...)
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