Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12742

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Publication type: news

Loftus P.
US Prescriptions For Vytorin, Zetia Rebounded Last Week -Firm
CNN Money.com 2008 Feb 5
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200802051642DOWJONESDJONLINE000601_FORTUNE5.htm

Full text:

U.S. prescriptions for embattled cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia rebounded last week, following two weeks of declines amid questions about their effectiveness, a drug-data vendor said Tuesday.

Total prescriptions for Vytorin, which is marketed by a joint venture of Merck & Co. (MRK) and Schering-Plough Corp. (SGP), rose about 8% to 343,346 in the week ended Feb. 1, compared with the previous week, according to Verispan, a Yardley, Pa., research firm.

Zetia prescriptions rose about 9% to 250,979 in the week ended Feb. 1, versus the previous week, Verispan said.

Results of a study known as “Enhance,” were released Jan. 14 and showed that Vytorin was no better than generic simvastatin in slowing artery-clogging despite reducing bad cholesterol to a greater degree. Vytorin is a single-tablet combination of simvastatin and Zetia.

The announcement sparked a firestorm of criticism of the companies’ handling of the study, which had been completed in 2006, particularly the long delay in releasing results. Members of Congress and some state officials have opened investigations into various aspects of the study. The companies have tried to defend their handling of the study.

Prescriptions for both drugs dropped sharply in the two weeks after the Enhance study came out. Even after last week’s rebound, prescription volumes were still about 13% to 15% lower than in the week before the negative study was released.

But Merck and Schering-Plough are hopeful that their efforts to stand behind both drugs will stave off further prescription erosion. The companies have emphasized that both drugs are effective in their FDA-approved uses, primarily to lower levels of bad cholesterol.

“We are very pleased with the progress we’ve seen in the most recent daily prescriptions,” Kenneth Frazier, president of global human health at Merck, told investors at a Merrill Lynch conference Tuesday. “We have seen a stabilization of the trends that we were seeing before.”

Frazier also said the company was doing its best to counter the widespread, negative publicity over the study. “We’re not sitting still,” he said. “Merck and Schering-Plough are actively engaged in helping physicians and patients more fully understand what Enhance actually means and what it doesn’t mean.”

Vytorin and Zetia had combined sales of $5.2 billion in 2007.