Kowa launches new statin in the UK

pharmafile | August 20, 2010 | News story | Sales and Marketing Kowa, Recordati, cv, statin 

A new statin has been launched in the UK by Japanese pharma company Kowa.

Livazo (pitavastatin) has been approved by the MHRA and is the first approval for the drug in the EU.

The new product is arriving many years after the first statins were launched, and is entering a highly genericised market in the UK.

But Kowa says its product will fill a niche in the market, thanks to its low levels of interactions with food and other drugs compared to existing statins.

Dr Rod Coombs, European marketing manager at Kowa Research Europe says

Livazo does not interact with agents that inhibit or induce CYP3A4 (a metabolism agent), and therefore “markedly reduces the risk of drug and drug and drug and food interactions,” compared with existing statins such as Pfizer’s Lipitor.

Kowa said that because of the drug’s ability to inhibit CYP3A4, it could be used as a first-line treatment option for clinically complex patients.

Pitavastatin has been Kowa’s leading cardiovascular product in Asia since 2003, and further anticipated approvals in Europe will help increase its sales.

In its home market of Japan, sales of the product reached $430 million (representing 12% market share) in the last fiscal year, a figure expected to rise at least $600 in the next few years.

Marketing rights to the drug in many other European countries is controlled by Italian firm Recordati, which bought the rights from Kowa in October 2008.

Professor John Betteridge, department of diabetes and endocrinology, UCLH, London, said: “Since many patients treated for elevated cholesterol may be on multiple medications, it is important that physicians caring for these patients understand how treatment with a cholesterol medication, such as a statin, may potentially interact with the other drugs the patient may be taking.”

Kowa Research Europe, the UK pharma base of the Japanese firm Kowa, believes that this approval will act as a positive reference point to the EMA, with whom Kowa filed the drug in August 2008.

The drug was approved by the FDA in August 2009 and Kowa launched it in the US in June of this year with co-marketers Lilly.

Ben Adams

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