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'Crestor' is safe and effective: drug firm

DUBAI - Following a report in the Khaleej Times on the cholesterol-lowering drug, rosuvastatin, marketed under the trade name Crestor, the Dubai offices of AstraZenica pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of the drug, has received a number of calls from patients concerned on the safety of the drug.

In a Press release, the drug company repeated the safety and efficacy of the drug. Laura Bradbard, an FDA spokeswoman, said that Crestor is both effective and safe and that all the scientific evidence supports this finding.

The three most recent clinical studies confirm Crestor's efficacy in diabetics. The drug has been unanimously approved by the FDA as well as by the regulatory authorities in the European Union, as a result Crestor is now approved in more than 55 countries worldwide including the UAE.

Since its approval, Crestor has been used by more than 1.6 million patients. Crestor has an advantage over other Statins in lowering LDL cholesterol and raising HDL cholesterol, which has been proved through several clinical studies published in a number of medical journals.

Among these studies is the STELLAR study, which proved the efficacy of the 10mg to 40mg dose range. This study included several thousand patients and was published in the American Journal of Cardiology last August.

As for safety, the study confirmed that Crestor has the same safety profile as all the other statins and that its side effects are very rare. Dr William Roberts, the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology and one of the pioneers in cardiology, wrote that Crestor is the most effective in lowering the bad cholesterol and raising good cholesterol as well as in lowering triglycerides.