Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Well -- There's A Shocker. (Or, Not.)


Tonight, in a press release, Decision Resources, of Waltham, Mass., is touting a new report it hopes to sell to the consumers of health care data sets, here in the United States.

Forgive if I seem jaded, here, but anyone reading this blog, or The New York Times, even, over the last 18 months --- would be able to recite these facts from memory. There is scant "new" information value, here -- take a look:

. . . .Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that Merck/Schering-Plough's Zetia and Vytorin have lost substantial patient share in second- and third-line therapy since last year's analysis of the dyslipidemia drug market. This decline is most likely attributed to the publication of the ENHANCE trial which called into question the ability of these agents to improve clinical outcomes beyond the ability of statin monotherapy.

The new "Treatment Algorithms in Dyslipidemia" report also finds that statins have gained patient share with Zetia's and Vytorin's decline in use since the ENHANCE fallout. Survey results indicate that over the next two years cardiologists and primary care physicians intend to be more aggressive in their treatment of dyslipidemia. They also plan to increase their use of the most potent statins, particularly Pfizer's Lipitor and AstraZeneca's Crestor, and adjunct agents belonging to the classes of fenofibrates and bile acid sequestrants. . . .

I provide this here, tonight, simply in the interest of preserving a complete record. So, don't buy whatever Fred Hassan has repeatedly said -- about seeing "stabilizing" United States demand -- for Vytorin/Zetia.

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