GLG News by Crestor Prescribers (US)

The JUPITER trial showed that people with what is regarded as normal ('bad') cholesterol and elevated C-reactive protein benefit more from the choleterol lowering drug rosuvastatin (Crestor, Astra-Zeneca) than from placebo. The first question is: is this true only for this particular type of statin...

The Endeavour stent appears to have a higher restenosis rate than currently marketed Drug Eluting Stents without the improved safety profile claimed by the company.  This finding is at odds with the companies marketing message to cardiologists.  These studies, along with the introduction of...

This plan to start a large trial to determine the optimal antiplatelet therapy. after [drug-eluting] stent implantation makes sense both scientifically and economically for the involved stent companies (Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific, Medtronic and Abbott). Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol Myers...

The growth of the big pharma companies in the past 20-30 years has to do with the fact that the medical community was willing to accept large trials (some with surrogate endpoints) as proof that a new treatment is good and that it can replace the old one. Since the problems with Troglitazone, Cerivastatin,...

The anemia drug erythropoietin and its congeners have been used extensively in patients with renal failure and in patients with cancer to boost the red cell count. However, erythropoietin also helps reduce programmed cellular death and is involved in the growth of new vessels. Because of these features...

The Medicare drug system was a political ploy. This just confrims it. The private insurers were unwilling to offer Rx coverage before then because they understood the economics of it.

The general public hears the bullet that stents are no better than medications, but the reality that this trial (COURAGE trial) had major flaws, the main being that only 10% of the patients screened participated in the trial. 90% were excluded. Thus, the patients enrolled were not necessarily the typical...

Given the economic pressures on patients, they are now more likely to ask for generic medications than they were in the past.  Given that there are generic versions of several classes of medications, physicians such as me are more likely to comply with a patient's request for a generic than in...

Mechanical thrombectomy of the coronary arteries has becoming increasingly more common with the advent of simpler aspiration catheters.  Although its use in the setting of acute myocardial infarction is even more common, it is not routine.  Randomized data indicating its effect on clinical...

It is well known that the addition of thiazide diuretic to ACEI or ARB treatment adds about 10 mm Hg reduction on top of the 10 mm Hg reduction provided by the ACEI or ARB agent.  It is expected that blocking renin in the renin angiotensin system with Tekturna would provide a similar result.