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Biotech / Medical : Biotech Valuation

CRSP 55.93

-0.6%

Dec 16 3:59 PM EST

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To: Biomaven who wrote (15068)	1/4/2005 1:50:07 PM
From: Sam Citron	Read Replies (2) of 52153

Lipitor has likely had a bigger favorable impact on life expectancy than any other single drug. Peter, I am a complete novice when it comes to these matters so I am trying to educate myself. I am reading John Abramson's Overdo$ed America. Last night I read the chapter: A Smoking Gun: The 2001 Cholesterol Guidelines in which the author seems to take issue with your statement: (1) "the net result of treating people with moderate risk of developing coronary heart disease [CHD] with a statin was simply to trade CHD for other serious diseases, with no overall improvement in health" (p. 138) (2) "There is no evidence from primary prevention trials that cholesterol lowering affects total mortality in women...[R]ationale for therapy is based on extrapolation of benefit from men of similar risk" (p. 139) (3) "Total cholesterol is not significantly related to mortality from CHD beyond the age of 60." (p. 141) "When a randomized controlled study of the effects of statins in elderly patients without heart disease was published in 2002, the overreaching estimates of the benefits of statin therapy for people in this age group were not borne out." (p. 142) (4) "Just how many heart attacks are prevented by treating people who already have had heart attacks with a statin drug? In the CARE and LIPID studies, the reduction in fatal and nonfatal heart attacks in the people treated with Pravachol was 0.6% each year. This means that 166 people need to be treated for a full year to prevent one heart attack...[G]iven all the media hype about statin drugs, it is easy to be misled into believing that statins will help everybody or almost everybody who has already had a heart attack." (pp. 142-143) The author is a Harvard Medical School professor who seems to have excellent credentials. His overall thesis, restated from the book's front cover is that "pharmaceutical companies distort medical knowledge, mislead doctors, and compromise the nation's health". He seems to make a pretty good case. If you want some overall context, you can search within the book at amazon.com You are not a doctor, but seem quite knowledgeable about the pharmaceutical industry. So what is the basis for your belief that "Lipitor has likely had a bigger favorable impact on life expectancy than any other single drug"? Sam

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