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BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug
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Subject: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Jun 12 - 05:51 PM This thread is started in answer to false information about this drug posted in mudcat. Its development is a success story for scientists working for the drug companies. Dr. Akira Endo, working for the drug company Sankyo, set out to create a cholesterol-lowering drug. He searched for a compound that inhibited the enzyme HMG-CoA. He identified mevastatin in 1971, the first cholesterol fighting drug. Merck, was doing research to the same end. Dr. Vageros and Merck scientists duplicated Endo's work, and synthesized a new statin, lovastatin in 1978, and began to work towards FDA approval, and got it. Doctors prescribed statins to reduce cholesterol and reduce heart attack. Another Merck-approved product, Simvastatin, later Zocar, showed well in tests, and by 1994, it and Merck's Mevacor were both billion-dollar winners. Sankyo and Bristol Myers Squibb joined to market a competitor, Pravachol. Back in 1982, Bruce Roth, a post-doctoral fellow at Rochester University, synthesized a product close to Endo's and attracted the attention of Warner Lambert. Roth signed on with them, and headed an 18-scientist atherosclerosis group. New statins were synthesized, but it looked like Warner Lambert were losing out. Then Ronald Creswell, head of their labs, convinced management to test their Lipitor with humans in clinical trials. Pfizer joined with Lambert in the tests and they marketed Lipitor in 1996. In a head-to-head trial published in 1996, Lipitor, Pravachol, Lescol (Novartis), Zocar and Mevacor results were shown graphically. Lipitor started at a higher point, and swung upward more rapidly. Lipitor got FDA approval in 1997 and the media blitz started. They also undercut Merck's price. Pfizer acquired Warner Lambert for $90 billion in 1999 and gained control of Lipitor. Roth is now a manager, and handles a large part of Pfizer's over $5 billion a year research budget. The global market for statins hit $24 billion in 2007, and continued to grow. Income from Lipitor is approaching $10 billion per year. Statins have drawbacks, effects such as weakening of heart muscles, and require careful medical supervision of patients using them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Bobert Date: 08 Jun 12 - 05:56 PM Any story on Lipitor with no mention of N.I.H. is suspect, at best... Do better and more complete research, Q... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Tiger Date: 08 Jun 12 - 06:05 PM Lipitor's going generic. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Jun 12 - 06:19 PM Most of the above from "The $10 billion Pill Hold the fries, please. Lipitor, the cholesterol-lowering drug, has become the bestslling pharmaceutical in history. Here's how Pfizer did it." John Simons,January 20, 2003 Fortune Magazine Added note: In 2003, some 44 million people took the drug Bruce Roth synthesized in 1986. Roth left Pfizer Global Research and Development in 2007 when he joined Genentech in San Francisco. Genentech is a leader in the development of cancer drugs, and in the study of Alzheimer's-Genetic relationships. (Pfizer is also known for Viagra.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Jun 12 - 06:24 PM Bobert, please verify any relationship of Lipitor synthesis to the N.I.H. Lipitor's patent has expired, and the company is marketing the drug at prices competitive to generic drugs of similar type. None are exactly alike, and there is some controversy about the equivalence to Lipitor. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Bobert Date: 08 Jun 12 - 06:51 PM It's not "Lipitor", Q... It's statins... Pfizer did not discover statins... N.I.H. did... Pfizer monkeyed with the formula a tad and sold it as Lipitol... My source: Dr. English, Harvard University who was on the Diane Rehm show some 15-20 years ago... I went out for a drive thruu lunch to take back to my office and ended up sitting in the car eating my lunch and listening to the entire interview... BTW, your profit numbers don't jive... The ones you posted on the other thread, for which I thanked you for posting, showed Pfizer making $66B last year??? With Lipitor being the mother-ship of Pfizer and the tens of millions of America (taxpayers) paying $100 a month for it, the $200B over the life of this drug may be shy... Yes, there are generics... Unfortunately, if you have insurance the cost of the generatics are excatly the same as Lipitor... Don't even ask me to recite my pharmacist's explanation... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Jun 12 - 07:20 PM The Japanese researcher Akira Endo was the first to synthesize a statin, not some N.I.H "researcher." Yes, Lipitor is one of the statins, as the several types whose trade names are mentioned in the Fortune article from which I extracted most of my post. I think your anecdotal story is the result of poor recall. What is the field of "Dr. English"? Perhaps N.I.H. evaluated some clinical trials, but it had nothing to do with primary statin synthesis. A current area of research at Harvard Medical School is the relationship of statins to diabetes, researcher JoAnn Manson, professor of medicine, working with doctors at Brigham and Womens Hospital. Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, an assistant professor, is working on relative reliability of statins; he says Lipitor and Crestor (AstraZenica Co.)are about equal in treating coronary artery disease. Both of the above are referenced from the HMS website. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: kendall Date: 08 Jun 12 - 07:31 PM My Doctor just put me on a generic Lipitor.It aint cheap. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Bobert Date: 08 Jun 12 - 07:42 PM Dr. English was the Dean of Harvard's Pharmacy Department... You don't believe me... Write Dian Rehm at WAMU since you are the one accusing me of fabricating information... They can help you with your research... BTW, forget the internet... It sucks anymore umnless you are willing to go well deep (like hundreds of pages) to find the truth as it was known when it happened... And forget Wiki... It sucks in general... For anything that is controversial it gets crammed with mis-information... Heck, I found misinformation on the Churchill Tunnel... I know more about it that 99.999999% of the population but they told me to purdy much go "f" myself when I tried to get them to correct it... Good luck, Q... Call Harvard Medical School, for starters... BTW, my mind is like a steel trap on some things... Ya' see, when I heard the interview, my dad had just gone on Lipitor so I was real interested in the Diane Rehm piece about it... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Ebbie Date: 08 Jun 12 - 07:53 PM My mind is kind of like that, too, Bobert- only more of a steel sieve. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: gnu Date: 08 Jun 12 - 08:05 PM "my mind is like a steel trap" Me too. But mine is rusted open. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Bobert Date: 08 Jun 12 - 08:18 PM Well, I remember stuff from the past real well... No short term stuff unless it matters... I have been building the P-Vine a potting shed - nothin' monsterous, just 12 X 12 - and been cutting lumber and pourin' footers and all that buildin' kinda stuff and if you asked me any of the measurements I'd know 'um off the top of my head... What I had fro breakfast??? Different matter... Things that interest me, I pay close attention to... I been thinking about the 1960 election a lot recently and going over stuff... You know, why Kennedy picked LBJ and LBJ as a VP... I donno, maybe that will take a back seat to something else that has happened that I was very interested in??? I hope so... I'm getting purdy tired of thinking and remembering stuff about LBJ... He was a pain in the ass... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Bobert Date: 08 Jun 12 - 09:02 PM BTW, I have just fired off an email to Diane Rehm and asked her if she has any contact info on Dr, English or a transcript of the show... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Rapparee Date: 08 Jun 12 - 11:15 PM For what it's worth, Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. launched Lipitor in Japan in 2000. There is some evidence -- I can only say that since I don't know Japanese -- that Yamanouchi worked with what is now Pfizer in the discovery of atorvastatin in the 1960s or 1970s. Yamanouchi is now Astellas Pharma. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 08 Jun 12 - 11:56 PM
Middle Eastern DIET Weight loss will follow |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Jun 12 - 02:18 PM Bruce Roth, "superstar among chemists," Biography in Iowa State alumni magazine, Visions: "The $12 Billion Man." http://visions.isualum.org/fall06/coverstory8.asp Awards include: 1999 Inventor of the Year Award from New York Property Law Association 2003 American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention 2003 Gustavus J. Esselen Award for Chemistry in the public interest Iowa State's Distinguished Achievement Award in 2005 2008 American Chemical Society, "Heroes of Chemistry." (25 members, 2008 inductees from Glaxo SmithCline, Pfizer, ExxonMobil, Wyeth Research, Albemarle Corporation. References include- Roth BD et al., Inhibitors of cholesterol biosynthesis..... J. Med. Chem, 1991 Jan:34(1):357-66. (The et al. includes his nine co-workers at Warner Lambert). Roth and the original synthesized of statins, Akira Endo, could well be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Endo A, Hasumi K, 1989, Biochemical Aspect of HMG CoA reductose inhibitors, Adv. Enzyme Regul. 1989:28:53-64. Endo A, 1988, Chemistry, biochemistry and pharmacology of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors. Klin. Wochenschr. 1988 May 16;66(10):421-7. Thanks to my son's physician wife for help with references obtained from PubMed.gov, US National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Jun 12 - 05:03 PM The primary function of the NIEHS (NIH) in research is to provide funds for a great variety of programs at many institutions. Lupus, osteoarthritis, stem cell, gene, statin effect on musculoskeletal system, and many other research programs have received support. One section, NIAMS, supports Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin diseases. http://www.niams.nih.gov/News_and_Events/Spotlight_on_Research/2009/default.asp If the republicans get in, look for severe cutbacks in available funds. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: JohnInKansas Date: 10 Jun 12 - 05:55 AM From the information my pharmacy has given me, it doesn't appear that Lipitor is all that exorbitantly priced. One invoice indicated a "Company Cost" of $11.15 for a 90 day supply, and they billed me $10 just because that's the "minimum billing per prescription" for my insurance with that company. That may not represent what everyone would pay, since Medicare applies "negotiated rates" that are sometimes quite a bit lower than the open "retail" price, but the "Medicare rates" for other things that I've had more complete info on generally are at least 50% - 80% of the open market prices. The same invoice that showed Lipitor at 11 cents per day did show Zetia costing the dispensary $309, and after Medicare and my secondary insurance it was still $60 out of my pocket (67 cents/day). I've noticed ads within the last week or so that Zetia has "gone generic" (unconfirmed as yet) so maybe that profiteering will subside in the near future. As soon as there is a generic, my cost should drop to the same dime per day as most of the rest of the stuff John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Bobert Date: 10 Jun 12 - 10:13 AM Medicare pays $77 a month (30 days), John, and the AARP supplemental pays $24... I get the statements and that's what some entity is paying... That equals $100 for 30 days... Maybe I need to order my Lipitor from your pharmacy... Please post their name and I'll call them tomorrow and see if we can work out something... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 10 Jun 12 - 03:01 PM Costs in Alberta, Canada Crestor has now come off patent (March 15, 2012), the last of the statins to do so. In Alberta, cost/10mg pill in 2011: Crestor- $1.462/pill Rosuvastatin (generic substitute)- $0.6579/pill as of June 12, 2012. (There are other generic options) Lipitor- $1.82/pill Atorvastatin (generic substitute)- $0.80 per pill, introduced 1911. Pfizer is marketing Genmed as their generic for Lipitor. Eleven other drug manufacturers are listed as producing generic substitutes for Lipitor. New generics are priced at 45% of the brand name price. Figures from Alberta School Employees Benefit Plan. Full ASEBP online reports found most easily by googling Alberta, Lipitor Cost, or ASEBP Please note: there are differences between these statins and your physician may require a particular one for your condition, other drug need, etc. Blue Cross Alberta has an article on Lipitor and optional substitutes at: https://www.ab.bluecross.ca/pdfs/connection0610.pdf |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 10 Jun 12 - 03:13 PM Introduced 1911- slight error, should be 2011. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: JohnInKansas Date: 10 Jun 12 - 06:36 PM Bobert - The pharmacy from which we currently get our regular prescriptions is called "Medco Home Delivery" (with variations depending on which form you got last) and all dispensing is via mail (or UPS/FedEx etc). Our real reason for using them is that's what our primary medical insurer tells us to use. (The primary is a company provided (under Union Contract) retirement policy from a former employer. Until recently, we used "Aetna Home Delivery" (similarly variable) for the same reasons. Comparing prices for us "old farts" is difficult, since Medicare intervenes, and Medicare is administered by each state, with different rules (sometimes vastly different) for each state. Medicare generally "negotiates" (a euphemism for "dictates") what they will allow a provider to charge for each product/service, so the state "contract" will determine what will show as the "price" of a particular medicine. In our area at least, practitioners may demand that you sign a waiver that claims that you have been informed of anything that "might not be covered by Medicare," and if you haven't signed a waiver the doctors/pharmacies must accept the Medicare price as full payment. If your insurance (including Medicare) doesn't cover the whole "Medicare allowed" amount, you make up the difference, but you can't be charged for the difference between "list price" and "Medicare price." (The waiver forms never say what might not be covered, so sometimes even if you signed one you can argue lack of "informed consent" if the doc tries to stick you with a list price(?)) I'm not sure whether the mail order pharmacies have similar prices for individuals, since we've only used them "as specified" by our primary insurer and under contracts negotiated by the insurers. (Prices may be negotiated by the insurer, separate from the "Medicare" price lists, and the pharmacies may have contracts to buy from manufacturers at "discounts." There are no fixed prices in the business.) There are a number of such "mail order pharmacies" that do offer somewhat lower prices to individuals, but there are also a number of such "mail order pharmacies" with less than reputable histories, so be advised ... . Most large insurers (group insurers) have contracts with "providers," including doctors and pharmacies, to set limits on prices; but the price can vary with who you're insured with. The cost of "anything medical" - for the total to you and your insurer(s) - will generally be half or less of what's billed to an uninsured individual unless your insurance came from some guy operating out the boot in his car using throwaway cell-phones. If this is all rather confusing, be consoled by the certain knowledge that you're much less confused than those who make all these rules - except for their understanding that "confusion = profit." John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Bobert Date: 10 Jun 12 - 06:55 PM If I am not mistaken, Medi"caid" varies from state to state but not Medicare... No matter... I'll check out your source... Thanks... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: JohnInKansas Date: 11 Jun 12 - 02:07 AM Bobert Rules for administering both Medicare and Medicaid are set up by the individual states, theoretically meeting the minimum requirements of the Federal law; but for both there are "a few" organizations that operate in several states, so the "management agencies" may be the same in several states, but they have to operate according to the rules set up by the state where the insured person lives. The "administrative rules" within an individual state, and sometimes in different parts of the same state can vary by quite a bit. Federal Social Security Benefits are paid directly by the Fed, but so far as I've been able to figure it, all medical benefits are handled by the states (or by their hired guns). For complete confusion, you might find some fairly believeable statistics on the variations between areas in Medpac Report to Congress for 2012, although since it's written for Congress it may be mostly unintelligible to cogent humans. (The report is actually intended to tell "how well it's working" rather than "how it works," - if that distinction makes any sense to you.) John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 11 Jun 12 - 01:27 PM Variations in Canada from province to province as to approved drugs. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Bobert Date: 12 Jun 12 - 08:20 PM Thanks, John... I am about to enter the "mostly unintelligible to cogent humans" web site or... ...quit these meds... Too expensive... BTW, Q... I have spoken with Diane Rehm's people and maybe have some sources soon... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 13 Jun 12 - 12:51 PM The NIH is important, as a source of funds for original research. They have funded at least one important statin study, but did not do the work themselves. Their funds go to university and independent research. I don't believe that they have funded any company research. I am afraid that if the republicans get in, funding will be decreased or cut out. The funding is important to medical research. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Lipitor, the multi-billion dollar drug From: Bev and Jerry Date: 13 Jun 12 - 06:02 PM Now both of us have been on statin drugs for years and we're now on Medicare which offers 45 different drug plans in our area. We were on lipitor which was rather costly even with Medicare drug insurance because it was considered to be a brand name drug as opposed to a generic. So, our doctor switched us to Simvastatin, a generic that he thinks is not quite as good for us as Lipitor but is available with no copayment on our current plan. Now that Pfizer's patent for Lipitor has expired, the doc told us to switch to atorvastatin, the generic equivalent of Lipitor as soon as it appears on our insurance company's formulary. Trouble is, it never appeared. But then we discovered that Lipitor is now listed in the formulary as a brand name but it is priced just like a generic - that is, no copayment. We asked our pharmacist what was going on and she told us that Pfizer cut a deal with our insurance company to rebate the extra cost of Lipitor to them so that it would be even cheaper (for them) than atorvastatin if they would agree not to cover atorvastatin. If Pfizer does this with enough insurance companies, the folks that make atorvastatin will be forces out of business. Big pharma strikes again! Bev and Jerry |
