AstraZeneca: Crestor combo achieves ‘biggest cholesterol reduction ever’

AstraZeneca has said that its statin, Crestor (rosuvastatin), has achieved an “unprecedented” lowering of LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C, commonly referred to as “bad cholesterol”) ever seen in a statin trial, as part of a combination therapy with ezetimibe (Merck/Schering-Plough’s Zetia).

The Crestor/ezetimibe combination therapy study, entitled EXPLORER, displayed a 70 per cent reduction in LDL-C and helped 94 per cent of high-risk patients meet their target LDL-C goals, compared to 79 per cent using Crestor alone.

AstraZeneca claims that Crestor, the “most effective statin at reducing LDL-C”, can be used as a combination therapy in patients with “very high LDL-C”, who have otherwise failed to control their LDL-C levels and remain as “particularly high-risk patients”.

Professor Christine Ballantyne, the lead investigator of the study from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, remarked: “Cardiologists have long recognised the challenge in helping patients with dangerously high cholesterol levels – and especially the high risk patient with high cholesterol – reach their target lipid levels.

“Several studies have already demonstrated that rosuvastatin, as a statin monotherapy, is highly effective at lowering elevated cholesterol levels.”

“EXPLORER now shows that a treatment regimen using rosuvastatin as a base and adding-on ezetimibe can help even the difficult-to-treat patient population achieve optimal cholesterol targets,” she concluded.

AstraZeneca claims that Crestor has been prescribed to over seven million patients worldwide and that it is the only statin to demonstrate the regression of atherosclerosis in a major clinical trial, across all endpoints.

Crestor is AstraZeneca’s second-largest selling cardiovascular drug after Seloken/Toprol-XL.

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