Adding Zetia to Zocor, he said, might lower cholesterol levels without reducing heart attacks and strokes.
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So adding Zetia to Zocor in that study still should have resulted in thinner arteries.
Sixty-nine people got Zetia on top of more proven cholesterol drugs and 154 didn't.
Unlike all those medicines, there is no evidence that Zetia prevents heart attacks or strokes.
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Vytorin combines Zocor with a newer drug called Zetia that adds additional cholesterol-lowering oomph.
Nissen argues that these patients should have been an ideal group for proving Zetia's benefits.
The Vytorin combo is better at lowering cholesterol than either Zetia or Zocor alone.
The best hope for that will come from combining Zetia with Merck's cholesterol pill Zocor.
In answer to your question, Ezetimibe (trade name Zetia) is a cholesterol absorption inhibitor.
With Zetia, Schering's laboratories have given Kogan what could be a very important medicine.
Zetia can be added to a low dose of a statin to lower cholesterol even more.
Zetia may have been a perfect fit, given the climate of modern American medicine.
The companies co-market two cholesterol drugs, Vytorin and Zetia, that are both expected to be blockbusters.
For 10 months there has been widespread controversy about Zetia's effectiveness as a heart disease treatment.
Zetia lowers LDL 15% by preventing cholesterol from being absorbed from food in the intestine.
Merck and Schering have stood resolutely behind the safety and effectiveness of Zetia and Vytorin.
One potential winner is a combination of Zocor with another already-marketed cholesterol medicine, Zetia.
Zetia lacks the muscle-weakening side effects that afflict the current crop of cholesterol blockbusters, called statins.
Vytorin combines Zetia with Zocor in a combo pill to get an even bigger cholesterol-lowering wallop.
One reason for the decline: the falling sales of cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia.
There are many people who would be "nowhere near" their cholesterol goals without Zetia, Hassan says.
The selling point of Vytorin is that you Zetia boosts the cholesterol-lowering potency of statins.
Merck and Schering-Plough filed a new drug application for Zetia with the FDA in December 2001.
The Zetia-Zocor combo is sold under the name Vytorin, which is, itself, a blockbuster.
The ENHANCE study, a test of Zetia from Merck and Schering-Plough, was another surprise.
Merck and Schering-Plough disagreed with the contention that use of Zetia and Vytorin should be limited.
But Vytorin, which combines Zetia and the now generic Zocor, is a different matter.
So that study might not show researchers if Zetia confers an additional benefit either.
Some researchers now wonder whether Zetia may have subtle, negative effects that counteract its LDL-lowering ability.
Instead, Merck didn't begin the trial until Zetia had been on the market three years.
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