E-DRUG: Why is lovastatin not registered in UK? (2)
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Hi Ruwan
I asked a well known lipidologist at Oxford University; see reply below.
Valeria
Dr Valeria Frighi
University Dept. of Psychiatry
Neurosciences Building
Warneford Hospital
Oxford
OX3 7JX
UK
Tel. -44 -1865 -223779
Fax -44 -1865 251076
Mobile phone 07974920013
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...I'm not absolutely certain, but I have a feeling that at the time Simvastatin and Pravastatin were launched in the UK, lovastatin was only licensed for use at a maximum dose of 40 mg and would have been less efficacious that simvastatin.
Wasn't lovastatin was also an MSD drug? It was certainly licensed in the US before Simvastatin. If it had been launched in the UK, its patent would therefore have expired before simvastatin.
Consequently, it was probably a hard-nosed commercial decision by MSD not to license a less efficacious product with shorter patent protection that would compete with simvastatin.