It remains the most potent drug for a disease that is on the rise around the world.
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Take the market for cholesterol medicines, which Merck established, and then, several years later, Pfizer stole with Lipitor, a more potent drug.
Zometa is a more potent drug, says Dr. Matthew Smith , a Harvard Medical School professor who wrote and designed the NEJM study.
The patient who saw the Crestor spot might get Lipitor or generic simvastatin instead (these are all cholesterol drugs.) Some folks who saw the Lipitor ad might be given Crestor, because their doctor wants a more potent drug.
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The problem is that simvastatin is not as potent a drug as either atorvastatin or Crestor.
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In one recent headline-grabbing study, high doses of Lipitor proved to be far better at preventing heart attacks than a less-potent rival drug, Pravachol.
The withdrawal "is consistent with our expectations that if there was a cardiovascular problem, the more potent the drug, the more likely the side effect, " says Leonard Yaffe, an analyst at Banc of America Securities.
Markowitz says that based only on preliminary data, the Roche drug appears to be more potent than Idenix's drug, but it has to be given in high doses.
Meanwhile, a potent new combination drug from Novartis vanquishes malaria in three days.
Meanwhile, a potent new combination drug from Novartis (nyse: NVS - news - people ) vanquishes malaria in three days.
The idea is that just as having a tolerable, combo pill regimen helped Gilead Sciences become the dominant player in HIV, so too will having potent and safe drug combinations will be the key to dominating the hepatitis C market.
Right now that drug doesn't look as potent as Vertex's drug, based on the limited data available, says Markowitz.
Thanks to an unusual joint venture between drug firm GlaxoSmithKline and the World Health Organization, a potent and affordable new malaria drug combo called Lapdap could reach the hospital within a year.
Good luck creating a new cholesterol drug as potent, safe for most people, and widely tested as Lipitor.
Thanks to an unusual joint venture between the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and the World Health Organization (WHO), a potent and affordable new malaria drug combo called Lapdap could reach the hospital within a year.
AstraZeneca used both techniques to tout its cholesterol drug Crestor as a potent artery unclogger.
While much more research is needed, scientists believe the drug could offer a potent new weapon against asthma.
With this in hand, company chemists crafted a drug 30 times more potent.
The study involved a drug known as T-DM1, which combines Roche's cancer drug Herceptin with a potent chemotherapy agent in a treatment designed to be delivered directly to the cancer cell.
Nissen argues that the drug isn't nearly so potent as a heart saver.
Encouraging data are also expected this weekend for an approach in which potent doses of chemotherapy are linked to antibody drug such as Roche's Herceptin to deliver chemo more directly to the tumor like a guided missile, to reduce the toxic side effects of chemo.
Revimid, in any case, was designed to be a more potent and safer version of Celgene's existing drug, Thalomid, which was linked to birth defects when used decades ago as an anti-nausea treatment during pregnancy.
Celgene, instead, found by accident that thalidomide, the nausea drug that causes birth defects, was a potent cancer fighter and developed an improved follow-on version, Revlimid.
In December Celgene won approval for its second drug, Revlimid, the product of a 13-year quest to develop a version of thalidomide that would be as potent against cancer but would lack most of the old drug's side effects, such as nerve damage and fatigue.
There's good reason to rush: The white powder is an experimental drug called Glivec, and it may be the most potent weapon ever aimed at a common form of leukemia.
Awaiting the FDA's nod this year are Crestor, a potent cholesterol buster, as well as permission to more broadly promote Casodex, its prostate cancer drug, and Arimidex, its breast cancer drug.
Several drug companies, including Amgen and the team of Regeneron and Sanofi, are developing incredibly potent cholesterol shots that work by targeting a protein called PCSK9.
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