Abbott signs deal to promote Crestor in U.S.

With Abbott being such a major player in the infant formula market, will this lead to more promotion of statins in the pediatric office, especially given the recent (although controversial) recommendation for possible statin use in children as young as 8 years old? And since they are involved in the overall nutritional market, how will this impact the sales of their nutritional products?

As the market for branded statins dries up slowly now with generic simvastatin and lipitor poised for the same fate, the fixed dose combos are the only salvation for the branded drugs.  Abbott has failed to capitalize on the fact that they have the only safe effective and approved drug for raising HDL (niaspan) and also for lowering triglycerides in combination with statins (tricor). Clearly...

The co-marketing with Abbott will undoubtedly help Crestor sales, if they can effectively develop a fenofibrate-rosuvastatin combination, and avoid over-burdening physicians with reps. However, there are other factors that will probably have a larger impact. 

-Crestor sold 2.8 billion dollars in sales in the recent year, will this partnership result in long term exponential growth? -What are the implications for Crestor with generic simvastatin and with Lipitor going generic in the next few years? -Is a combination product going to bolster Crestor sales?