Pravastatin action on CRP a class effect?

A new study has found that three of the top-selling HMG-CoA reductaseinhibitors or statins, Bristol-Myers Squibb's Pravachol (pravastatin), Merck & Co's Zocor (simvastatin) and Pfizer's Lipitor (atorvastatin), have equivalent effects on a marker of arterial inflammation that has been described as a positive risk factor for myocardial infarctions and stroke.

The new trial was a follow-up to prior research which showed that pravastatin could reduce levels of the marker, called C-reactive protein, raising B-MS' hopes that this effect could be a point of differentiation for its product in the increasingly-competitive statin market. The latest results, published in the journal Circulation (April 17) suggest that this effect is common to all drugs in the statin class, although the small sample size of the study, just 22 people, demands that further trials are conducted to investigate this further.

Lead investigator Ishwarlal Jialal of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, USA, said that 70%-80% of patients taking the statins saw CRP levels decline to below 2mg/l, the point at which the risk for cardiovascular events climbs dramatically.