Study shows ezetimibe prescribing soars in the USA compared with Canada

Use of the controversial new cholesterol-lowering drug, ezetimibe (trade names: Zetia, Ezetrol, Vytorin and co-marketed by US drug majors Schering-Plough and Merck & Co; Marketletters passim), has increased in the USA, far beyond that seen in Canada, where direct-to-consumer advertising is prohibited and there is more government regulation of drug reimbursement in publicly-funded drug formularies. Worldwide sales of ezetimibe are estimated at $5.0 billion for 2007.

A new study from Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California, USA, in partnership with Ontario, Canada's Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and the US Yale University in Connecticut, found that, over a recent four-year period, yearly prescriptions for ezetimibe in the USA grew to more than 33 million while, in Canada, with one-tenth of the US population, ezetimibe only reached 824,000 prescriptions. In 2006, ezetimibe accounted for 15% of all cholesterol-lowering prescriptions in the USA, while in Canada it only represented 3.4%.

The study, "Use of Ezetimibe in the United States and Canada," was released on the web site of the New England Journal of Medicine on March 30.