Schering Plough’s Inegy ‘more effective than Crestor’

Schering-Plough has said that Inegy, the Merck/Schering-Plough statin, is “significantly more effective” at lowering “bad” LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) than Crestor, the AstraZeneca statin.

As part of a new study, 715 high-risk patients were given either Inegy or Crestor. Although both drugs increased “good” HDL-cholesterol by eight per cent, Schering-Plough says that Inegy is better at lowering LDL-C.

It demonstrated that Inegy reduced LDL-C levels to under 70mg/dL in 50 per cent of patients, compared to 29 per cent in Crestor patients. The Schering-Plough drug was also effective 90 per cent of the time in lowering LDL-C levels to under 100 mg/dL, in comparison to 82 per cent with Crestor.

Dr Michael Davidson, professor of medicine and director of preventive cardiology at Rush University Medical Centre, Chicago, remarked: “Recent data shows that many patients do not reach recommended LDL-C treatment goals.”

“These data provide further evidence that [Inegy] is an excellent option to help lower the LDL, or bad, cholesterol levels of patients with high cholesterol,” he added.

Yesterday AstraZeneca demonstrated that Crestor, when combined with ezetimibe (one of the two active ingredients of Inegy), produced an “unprecedented” reduction in LDL-cholesterol levels, helping 94 per cent of high-risk patients reduce their LDL-C levels to under 100 mg/dL.

Inegy is marketed by Merck/Schering-Plough and is sold under the name Vytorin in the United States. Merck/Schering-Plough is a joint venture between Merck Sharp and Dohme and Schering-Plough, developed to further the development of new medicines.

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