Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb lose patent protection on Zocor and Pravachol next year, removing any incentive.
Patients either received the top dose of Pfizer's Lipitor or the second-highest dose of Bristol's Pravachol.
By contrast, more plaque built up in the arteries of the patients taking Pravachol.
Today, the same committee voted 12 to 2 not to sell Pravachol over the counter.
Sankyo invented Pravachol, one of the earliest statins, but licensed it in the U.S. to Bristol-Myers.
It also helps that by 2007, Zocor and Pravachol will be available in cheap generic forms.
Medicines such as Lipitor, Zocor and Pravachol cut down on heart attacks and save lives.
It shows Pfizer's Lipitor prevented heart problems better than a high dose of Bristol's own Pravachol.
The study tested the same doses of Pravachol and Lipitor that were used in the Reversal study.
"The implications are huge, absolutely huge, " says Harvard Medical School's Christopher Cannon, who led the Lipitor-versus-Pravachol study.
But those on the more powerful Lipitor were more likely to get there than those on Pravachol.
Earlier this year, the study funded by Bristol-Myers Squibb showed Lipitor outperforming a lower dose of Pravachol.
Bristol-Myers' own study, commissioned to show that Pravachol was not inferior to Lipitor, demonstrated just the opposite.
Three once lucrative cholesterol-cutters have already lost patent protection (Merck's Mevacor and Zocor, and Bristol-Myers Squibb's Pravachol).
The company's sales are dominated by its Glucophage franchise, which treats diabetes, and by Pravachol, a cholesterol-lowering drug.
But earlier this week, an influential analyst raised questions about the Pravachol study that could blunt its impact.
It funded a two-year, 4, 160-patient clinical trial to try to prove that Pravachol is not inferior to Lipitor.
Most doctors agreed that the difference was probably because the Lipitor lowered cholesterol a lot more than Pravachol.
Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic, compared the 80-milligram dose of Lipitor to the 40-mg dose of Bristol's Pravachol.
Bristol clearly hopes the impending Pravachol study will change some of those perceptions.
Still, growth would be a big surprise, and Pravachol's patent expires in 2006.
First, it provides definitive proof Crestor has lifesaving benefits like other statin drugs, such as Lipitor, Zocor and Pravachol.
Pravachol, a Bristol-Myers Squibb (nyse: BMY - news - people) drug, takes most of the leftovers.
Pravachol, made by Bristol-Myers Squibb (nyse: BMY - news - people ), is the next biggest.
In PROVE-IT, presented two years ago, Lipitor proved better for treating very sick heart patients than Pravachol, from Bristol-Myers Squibb.
By itself, Zetia is far less powerful than the cholesterol-lowering medicines known as statins, such as Zocor, Lipitor and Pravachol.
Crestor is far more potent than Zocor or Pravachol, although its top dose lowers cholesterol in a manner comparable to Lipitor.
Under previously existing guidelines, 36 million people should be taking cholesterol-lowering pills such as Lipitor, Zocor, or Pravachol to prevent heart attacks.
Yet these two medications are different, just as cholesterol-fighting Lipitor is different and better-as time and studies have proved-than Bristol-Myers' similar Pravachol.
Yet these two medications are different, just as cholesterol-fighting Lipitor is different and better--as time and studies have proved--than Bristol-Myers' similar Pravachol.
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