The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7242 p427
29 March 2003

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Manufacturer claims superior action for new statin

A new statin, rosuvastatin (Crestor), has been launched this week by AstraZeneca (see p433), which, it claims, has superior action to others on the market.

Rosuvastatin is licensed for primary hypercholesterolaemia (including heterozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia), homozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia, or mixed dyslipidaemia, in patients unresponsive to diet and other non-pharmacological measures.

The statin was expected to have been launched last year. However, according to Dr Neil Brickel, senior medical adviser, AstraZeneca, a delay occurred because of a decision made during a clinical development programme to use a dose range of 10–40 mg and not to include an 80mg dose.

In 2001, Bayer withdrew cerivastatin (Lipobay) from all markets because of the risk of rhabdomyolysis if prescribed in conjunction with gemfibrozil (and when used at higher doses). Commenting on this, Dr Brickel said that no trials had been conducted to find out whether concomitant use of rosuvastatin with gemfibrozil results in the same risk because most people would not recommend the combination now.

He said that there was no doubt that the withdrawal of Lipobay had changed the way statins were viewed. Myopathy is a class effect and cases will arise if higher doses are used. However, "rosuvastatin has a greater lipid-lowering ability than other statins but with a comparable safety profile leading to a potentially better benefit to risk ratio," he said. Compared with other statins currently on the market, rosuvastatin 10mg was superior at lowering low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels and total cholesterol levels than pravastatin 40mg, simvastatin 40mg and atorvastatin 10mg, he said.