Pfizer: Lipitor beats Zocor for costs

Pfizer has released the results of a study which shows that patients using Lipitor, the world’s best-selling cholesterol-lowering drug, demonstrated a reduced risk of suffering a heart attack, stroke, or cardiovascular procedure in comparison to Zocor (simvastatin), the Merck anti-cholesterol drug available in generic form in some countries.

Because of the reduced incidence of cardiovascular events requiring hospital treatment, Pfizer said that using Lipitor instead of Zocor generics could induce cost savings in hospitals and clinics.

Pfizer highlighted two particular findings from the study: better efficacy in patients using Lipitor, at better overall value, and the overall savings that could be encouraged in the health system by using Lipitor, even if Zocor was reduced in price by 50 per cent.

Dr Peter Lindgren, Stockholm Health Economics, said: “This analysis suggests that the cost of using Lipitor versus generic simvastatin could represent a good value for money.”

Dr Gregg Larson, vice-president of cardio-vascular medicine at Pfizer, added: “Even if the current U.S. price of Zocor were reduced by 75 per cent, Lipitor patients could still achieve better cardiovascular outcomes at an increase to payors of less than one dollar a day.”

“While the economic cost of a stroke can be exorbitant, often entailing years of rehabilitation and supervised care the emotional impact on patients and their families is also devastating,” he concluded.

In April, Pfizer lost a patent challenge in Austria by Ranbaxy Laboratories for atorvastatin, the active ingredient in Lipitor. Pfizer said the ruling would not have implications for patents in other countries and it added that other patent challenges from Ranbaxy in the US and UK had been dismissed.

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