Experts Foresee Major Role For Generic Crestor

— Finally there’s a challenger to the long reign of Lipitor The FDA approval on Friday of the first generic version of Crestor (rosuvastatin calcium) marks the end of an era and the beginning of a major shift in cardiovascular medicine. Over time, as the price of the drug drops with generic competition, it seems…

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Pfizer Starts Testing For Over-The-Counter Lipitor

Looking backward to improve its future, Pfizer will once again try to gain FDA approval to market its blockbuster drug, atorvastatin (Lipitor), over-the-counter (OTC). Peter Loftus reports in the Wall Street Journal that the company has started a clinical study to support the application for low-dose atorvastatin (10 mg). … Click here to read the full post on Forbes….

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Blood Sample Mismatch Leads ‘Anguished’ Authors To Retract Three Lipitor Papers

Three substudies of the influential TNT (Treating to New Targets) trial have been retracted after the sponsor of the trial, Pfizer, discovered that blood samples from the study had been matched to the wrong participants. The main results of TNT, published in 2005 in the New England Journal of Medicine, had a major impact on clinical practice and statin prescription patterns….

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Atorvastatin Lifts Ranbaxy While Pfizer Abandons Its Lipitor Marketing Efforts

Pfizer will no longer aggressively market Lipitor (atorvastatin), its former crown jewel and the most lucrative pharmaceutical product ever. At the same time, generic drug manufacturer Ranbaxy posted record revenue for the last business quarter, growth fueled largely by sales of generic atorvastatin in the United States. Pfizer told the Wall Street Journal that it…

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Statins and Diabetes: Real Concern or Much Ado About Nothing?

Updated at 7 PM with a detailed comment at the bottom from C. Michael Minder of Johns Hopkins– In a New York Times Op-Ed piece on Monday, Eric Topol comments on last week’s announcement by the FDA that it was changing the label for statins. Topol focuses on the new warning that statins raise the risk…

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