New partner for those dangerous statin drugs

I have seen the future of blockbuster drugs, and its name is torecetrapib.

It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? No problem. I’m sure that Pfizer executives – the makers of torecetrapib – will dream up a catchier name when it comes time to market their new drug. For now let’s just call it “t- pib” for short.

T-pib is still in the testing stage, a couple of years away yet from FDA approval. But a small t-pib study – published in the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this month – found that the drug doubled the HDL cholesterol level in subjects with low HDL.

And guess what? T-pib even helped lower LDL cholesterol, especially when it was combined with an LDL-lowering statin drug. (The statin used in the study was Lipitor, the Big Kahuna of the statin market. It’s made by Pfizer, of course. And Pfizer helped fund the study. Of course.)

In 2006 Lipitor will be coming off patent. Do you think the Pfizer folks are maybe looking for a way to keep their cash cow producing?

Sometimes the handwriting on the wall is in two-foot-high, flashing red letters.

An Associated Press article about t-pib states that the only agent currently on the market that will raise HDL is niacin. Well not exactly.

In the e-Alert “To Lower, or Not to Lower ” (9/9/03), I told you about policosanol, a compound of fatty alcohols that’s gaining a reputation as a natural alternative to statin drugs.

In a policosanol trial – reported in the journal Gynecological Endocrinology – researchers tested more than 240 post-menopausal women with high cholesterol. The subjects were given 5 mg of policosanol daily for 12 weeks, then 10 mg daily for another 12 weeks. After 6 months, researchers found that the supplement was effective in significantly lowering LDL levels (25.2 percent) and total cholesterol (16.7 percent). In addition, the women experienced an overall 29.3 percent increase in HDL levels.

Meanwhile, we already know about the dangerous side effects of statin drugs. The side effects of t-pib, however, haven’t been revealed yet. And when statins are combined with t-pib? It could get ugly.

One thing is certain: We’ll be hearing much more about t-pib in the next few years.

Source:
“Torecetrapib Raises Heart-Healthy HDL in Preliminary Study” Associated Press, 4/7/04, ap.org