Zetia, Ezetimibe News

Merck & Co. may face a third negative study result within two years for its cholesterol pills Vytorin and Zetia, which have lost 14 percent of sales since January and could sink further.

Merck was sent back to the drawing board on its new Zetia-Lipitor combo drug when the FDA refused to accept its application.

Merck disclosed the rare move by the Food and Drug Administration in a regulatory filing Monday.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I had been feeling slightly uncomfortable in my chest, especially in the morning after waking.

The two companies have been partners on cholesterol drugs since 2000, and the new pill was expected to be a blockbuster.

In this May 22, 2008 file photo, the company logo is seen on the doors of a building at Merck & Co.

Main Category: Heart Disease Also Included In: Statins ; Cholesterol ; Seniors / Aging Article Date: 29 Oct 2009 - 0:00 PDT printer friendly view / write opinions rate article Adding ezetimibe to atorvastatin significantly boosted the attainment of lipid targets as specified by both Canadian and European guidelines in elderly patients aged 65 and ...

Adding ezetimibe to atorvastatin significantly boosted the attainment of lipid targets as specified by both Canadian and European guidelines in elderly patients aged 65 and older and the combination produced superior results than simply increasing the dose of atorvastatin alone, Dr.

Analyst Report ) reported third-quarter earnings of 40 cents per share, which was in-line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

Ezetimibe is a potent inhibitor of cholesterol absorption that has been approved for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia.

Plaintiffs believe that after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation and discovery, the evidence will show that Defendants were aware in.

Merck & Co. is buying Schering-Plough for $41.1 billion in a deal that gives Merck key new businesses, access to a promising pipeline of new products and the chance to further cut costs, including eliminating about 16,000 jobs.

Salmon is high in omega-3 fatty acids which may lower cholesterol. There is little evidence to support the widespread use of so-called "combination therapies" to lower cholesterol, according to experts from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the University of Ottawa.

High-dose statin monotherapy generally reduces cholesterol as well as combining a statin with another drug, although there is some evidence that a statin combined with ezetimibe in high-risk patients is slightly more effective than statins alone, a systematic review has shown.

Despite their popularity, so-called "combination therapies" may not be the most effective treatment for high cholesterol, Canadian researchers report.

"Limited evidence" suggests that combination lipid-lowering therapy is no more effective than high-dose statin monotherapy for improving clinical outcomes, according to a meta-analysis published online in Annals of Internal Medicine .

The article in Circulation by Liu et al1 claims that statin monotherapy provides greater "pleiotropic effects" than low-dose statin with ezetimibe due to the effects on Rho-kinase activity, which is postulated to play a role in flow-mediated dilation , a surrogate marker for endothelial function.

Your doctor tells you that your level of LDL - the "bad" type of cholesterol - is too high, and, in a double whammy, he says that your level of HDL - the "good" cholesterol - is too low.

Robert M. Califf, M.D., Robert A. Harrington, M.D., and Michael A. Blazing, M.D. The recent controversy about whether the cholesterol-lowering drug ezetimibe causes cancer raises urgent questions about the systems we use to develop drugs and medical devices and then to evaluate their safety and effectiveness.1,2,3 There is widespread recognition ...

Drug developers Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. said Wednesday they will pay $41.5 million to settle a series of lawsuits claiming they delayed key study results on their cholesterol drug Vytorin because the data was unfavorable.