Re: UK Approves OTC Status For Statins
From: Anna Meenan, MD (annam@uic.edu)
Wed May 12 21:27:58 2004
I don't think OTC sales would matter in our small town. Statins seem to
have gotten themselves a bad rep around town. It seems like everyone we
put on them develops myalgias. Everyone. Of course, it's mostly
small-town gossip and the power of suggestion, but it's getting to be a
big problem. I've got folks with cholesterol levels over 350 who are
refusing to take any meds for it and look at me like I'm trying to kill
them if I even suggest it. Oh well, that's life.
--
Anna Meenan, MD
At Wed, 12 May 2004, art fougner, md wrote:
>
>Britain to Approve
>Cholesterol Drugs
>For OTC Sale
>
>REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
>May 11, 2004; Page D5
>
>LONDON -- Statin drugs, widely taken to cut cholesterol and reduce the
>risk of heart attacks, are set to be approved for sale in Britain
>without a doctor's prescription.
>
>The move would make Britain the first country in the world to sell
>statins over the counter. Experts recommended last year that
>pharmacists should be able to supply them without a prescription
>following simple health checks carried out on the spot. An advisory
>panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may consider data in
>support of allowing nonprescription sales of statins within the next
>year.
>
>"There will be an announcement on Thursday," said a spokeswoman for
>Britain's department of health, following weekend reports that Health
>Secretary John Reid was about to give a green light to over-the-counter
>sales of the drugs.
>
>Merck & Co.'s Zocor, generically called simvastatin, will be the first
>cholesterol fighter to be sold over the counter, in doses of 10
>milligrams. Zocor was once Merck's top-selling product, but it lost
>patent protection in Britain last year, and the company, based in
>Whitehouse Station, N.J., is eager to make up for lost sales by
>switching into the nonprescription market.
>
>McNeil Europe, a unit of Johnson & Johnson that specializes in European
>OTC drugs, is expected to launch Zocor Heart-Pro -- as the product will
>be known -- at the end of June or early July. It will be priced between
>£10 and £15 (about $18 to $27) per 28-day pack.
>
>The company said it was still waiting for the formal license but had
>been preparing for the launch for several months. In the U.S., a joint
>venture of Merck and Johnson & Johnson, based in New Brunswick, N.J., is
>hoping to eventually sell its Mevacor statin without a prescription.
>
>The British government has said that it would like pharmaceutical
>companies to apply for the right to sell statins without a prescription
>-- a move that could reduce the state's drug bill.
>
>Currently some 1.5 million Britons receive statin therapy and the
>National Health Service spends around £750 million on the drugs each
>year.
>
>Statins are among the most widely prescribed of all medicines, with
>Pfizer Inc.'s market leader Lipitor generating world-wide sales of $9.23
>billion in 2003.
>
>http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108423039777807478,00.html?mod=health%5Fhome%5Fstories
>
>--
>art fougner, md
>ich bin ein New Yorker
>
