Zetia fails to show medical benefits

Jan/14/2008 03:54 Filed in: In The News
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“This is as bad a result for the drug as anybody could have feared,” said Dr. Nissen chairman of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic. Millions of patients may be taking a drug that has no benefits for them, raising their risk of heart attacks and exposing them to potential side effects, he said. Can you see the letter going out to physicians from insurers telling them they should not prescribe Zetia and that they will nor reimburse for prescriptions?



Patients in the trial who took the combination of Zetia and Zocor were receiving it in the form of Vytorin pills. The trial, called Enhance, lasted two years and covered about 720 patients with extremely high cholesterol, mostly in the Netherlands. This trial was designed to show that Zetia could reduce the growth of those plaques. Instead, the plaques actually grew almost twice as fast in patients taking Zetia along with Zocor than in those taking Zocor alone.


So I guess one could see why Merck and SP delayed the release of the data from the Enhance study. I am sure that this is going to cause a substantial drop in new Rx's as well as current Rx's as Merck and SP regroup, or as it is called in certain terms "a tactical retreat".
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