The media is great when they get the story straight but dangerous when the writer is only superficially informed about the topic. And then the title editor can totally distort the intent of the story content by jazzing up the title late at night prior to the paper going to press. I’m referring to the stories recently released about study results of 720 patients taking either Vytorin or simvastatin (brand Zocor). Unfortunately, the reported results have been misinterpreted by patients to categorically mean that the combination of Zetia and Zocor in Vytorin doesn’t work any better in reducing cholesterol than generic simvastatin alone.

What got lost in the reporting was the purpose of this study and the type of patient being treated. The objective was meant to show how well Vytorin reduced plaque buildup in neck arteries in people whose genes gave them stratospheric cholesterol. This condition medically known as Heterozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia is not typical of patients prescribed Vytorin.

The failure of Vytorin to perform in this subpopulation should not be interpreted to mean that Vytorin doesn’t work at all or isn’t better than simvastatin alone for patients needing the drug for other reasons–called “indications”. There were earlier studies done to get FDA approval to market the drug which demonstrated Vytorin worked for the broad population in lowering cholesterol and, especially, bad LDL.

Here’s a simplified analogy. Imagine if reporters presented poor clinical results for an already marketed cancer drug in another cancer indication than that for which it was already approved and used and the cancer drug in combination with the appropriate chemotherapy showed no improvement vs the chemotherapy alone. The story shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that patients prescribed the drug for a different cancer indication should worry that it wasn’t effective for that condition.

Merck and Schering Plough pulled the direct-to-patient TV ads to ease the upset in the market. It’s not surprising that they would pull these ads to allow for changes to explain the misunderstanding to patients. Yet the media questioned if they were hiding the “truth”.

Those of us marketing ethical drugs must always remember how difficult it is to convey a complicated medical message in a short TV ad. And how important it is to educate reporters about the impact of clinical study results. The Merck press release about the results on their company website explains the results clearly but unfortunately, the language is too difficult for lay people and typical reporters to interpret correctly.

Audrey