Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Crestor JUPITER Data Could Be a ‘Game Changer’

[#msg-28510348 is a good background piece on this topic.]

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/10/30/a-strong-season-for-astrazenecas-cholesterol-drug-crestor

›October 30, 2008
by Jacob Goldstein

AstraZeneca reported stronger-than-expected earnings this morning, largely on a big jump in sales of its cholesterol drug Crestor. And the drug could soon get yet another boost from the widely anticipated results from a study of cholesterol treatment.

The AstraZeneca financed study, known as Jupiter, enrolled more than 15,000 basically healthy people with modest amounts of bad cholesterol (the average LDL level was 104), but high levels of a common marker of inflammation [CRP].

Researchers aimed to see whether Crestor lowered the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke; the study was stopped early in March because of “unequivocal” benefits for patients who received the drug, but the full results have yet to be released [#msg-28053790].

Those data are likely to be one of the big stories next month at the American Heart Association’s big scientific meeting, where the study will be presented in full. If the data are a home run, they could prompt doctors to prescribe Crestor to millions of basically healthy people who aren’t currently taking cholesterol drugs, Forbes reports.

“It’s potentially a game-changer,” Steve Nissen, a high-profile cardiologist who is often skeptical of the drug industry, told Forbes. “There could be a much larger population of patients that may benefit than are currently treated.”

Even without the Jupiter results, Crestor sales are growing — which is particularly impressive given that Lipitor, Pfizer’s dominant cholesterol medicine, has been losing sales to generic competitors. AstraZeneca said this morning that the company sold $922 million worth of the medicine in the third quarter, up from $691 million during the year-earlier period. In the U.S., sales of the drug rose 23%. The gain is probably due at least in part to worries about the safety and efficacy of Vytorin, the cholesterol pill co-marketed by Schering-Plough and Merck.‹