FDA advisory committee voted 12 to 4 (one abstaining) to broaden use of cholesterol-lowering Crestor to people with normal cholesterol and no history of heart disease.
Not exactly a switch from Rx to OTC, but a move to increase sales of the drug. The FDA still needs to sign off on label changes. But according to the article on the web site Money Times, approval is expected.
“It'll open up the market to an additional 6.5 million people, but remember, we're talking about changing a small risk of heart issues into an even smaller one. Will people and their insurance agencies be willing to pay for it?”
Targets? People with other risks for heart disease--smokers for one.
Go ahead and light up, we are going to give you a drug that will soften the effects of smoking on your body!
“The billion-dollar question is whether the added protection is specific to Crestor” says the author of the piece, Brian Orelli “or if other statins like Pfizer's Lipitor would also offer the same benefit. With Merck's Zocor and Bristol-Myers Squibb's Pravachol already available as cheap generics, it seems likely that some academic is bound to test the hypothesis if they can get funding. A cheap generic a day might actually be worth the added benefit.”
Get your daily dose of global packaging trends, follow me on Twitter.
-By Jim Chrzan, Associate Publisher
