Maker of Lipitor Digs In to Fight Generic Rival

Maker of Lipitor Digs In to Fight Generic Rival

By STEPHANIE SAUL and ALEX BERENSON
Published: November 3, 2007

It is shaping up to be the biggest shift yet to a generic drug, potentially saving the nation $2 billion a year or more in prescription costs.

And scientists and doctors say that for most of the 16 million people in America who take drugs to reduce cholesterol, the low-priced alternative will work as well as the name-brand medicine — Lipitor, which is made by Pfizer and is the nation’s most widely prescribed drug.

While Lipitor itself is not available as a generic, a very similar drug made by Merck, Zocor, lost its patent protection last year. The generic version of Zocor, simvastatin, is now much cheaper than Lipitor, leading insurers to press doctors and patients to switch.

But Pfizer is not letting its flagship drug go down without a fight.

The company has mounted a campaign that includes advertisements, lobbying efforts and a paid speaking tour by a former secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Pfizer is also promoting a study — whose findings many experts are questioning — that concluded that British patients who switched to simvastatin had more heart attacks and deaths than those who remained on Lipitor.

The Lipitor battle has become a test of the pharmaceutical industry’s ability to defend name brands, even as insurers, patients and doctors seek to whittle the nation’s $270 billion annual prescription drug bill by using generic alternatives whenever possible.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/business/03generic.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

and that kind of money talks real loud. Why should the pharmaceuticals cut their profit margin from 1000% to a mere 100%? That's just un-american.

they'd request that. I'm going to now that I know, and that should go for any meds people are on.

another factor is that a lot of the older available generics work as well or even better than some of the newer high-dollar pills that get all the advertising. I have several friends in the medical community and they constantly have to deal with patients who want such and such because they saw it advertised on TV and get upset when they are told it's not really what they need for their condition.

Here are 2 little known facts. The statin drug makers want you to believe their expensive pills have cut the number of deaths from heart attacks. They never mention that the introduction of the drugs coincided with the onset of the "911" system that gets medical care to patients much faster than before. Secondly, the number of deaths from heart failure have increased since statin drugs arrived on the scene. Some people speculate that the same warnings given about muscle problems with drugs like Lipitor should be applied to the heart: the most important muscle of all.

all I have is fake sympathy.

:nopity:

oil. I'm 28. My cholesterol was high (which doesn't necesarily mean I'm going to die--you don't die from high cholesterol... you die from the cholesterol sticking.. which has to do with the condition of your arteries... the more hardened they become, the more apt the cholesterol is to stick no matter how much or little your body has... cholesterol is the biggest myth perpetrated on people in order to sell cholesterol medicine which leads to the decline in muscle control.) Anyway, within a year, my cholesterol is good just from taking 1 fish oil tablet and 2 flaxseed oil/ day and I'm not even that overly religious about it. If you have high cholesterol and it needs to be remedied quickly, red rice yeast will do the same thing naturally. The pharmaceutical co. are trying to get this banned from the stores because it is a natural, fast acting cholesterol reducer.

My husband had to deal with this too. The doc put him on lipitor. He shook like a leaf after 2 days and had to stop. He tried the red rice yeast and within a week it was doing the same thing to him as the lipitor... so he had a problem with staten like substances in his body. He's been taking his table spoon of milled flax seed 2 times a day for the past 3 years. Cholesterol is good and as a bonus side effect, weight is in control--he actually slimmed down.

I know, some will call this quackery, but our allopathic doc put us both on this natural path. So, I guess she's a quack too. Rather be a duck than a dead duck. (LOL).

It would really be sad if every young person new to take their fish oil or flax seed oil and remain healthy for their entire lives. Sadly, it seems they only know to biggie size something. Younger generations are victims of advertisments and parents who just don't have the time and barely know what is healthy and what isn't. Our supermarkets need to be changed around completely. 1/2 the store needs to be veggies and fruits. The rest need to be grain, dairy, meat (packaged smaller), and one aisle devoted to sweets that you make yourself so you can monitor what is put in. I know if you make cookies, you are not going to be adding dyes and additives for shelf life.