Analysts believe that with Britain on the verge of clearing over-the-counter sales of a top-selling cholesterol drug, the United States will likely be the next big market as regulators warm to the idea of a switch. The FDA in 2000 rejected the initial bid to move Merck's Mevacor and Bristol-Myers Squibb's Pravachol to nonprescription status because of safety concerns. But the agency has taken a more positive view of prescription-to-OTC switches in recent years, boosting chances for a switch of statins.
I sure hope that they wait a bit longer to authorize the switch as we have far more work to educate the public about the insanity of taking these statin drugs. Fortunately, if you type in "statins" in Google my site comes up #2, right behind the NIH so people will at least get a chance to review the true dangers of these drugs. There are only a very small handful of people who benefit from these drugs, far less than one in 100. However, with $10 billion per YEAR being paid for Lipitor there is plenty of economic influence to push these drugs even harder.
Forbes May 11, 2004
Associated Press May 13, 2004