The Economics of Hypercholesterolemia and Lipid-Lowering Therapy: A Brief Historical Tour

Abstract

The first formal economic evaluation of a lipid-lowering intervention was conducted almost 20 years ago. The field exploded in the mid-1980s following the publication of findings from the Lipid Research Clinics Coronary Primary Prevention Trial (LRC-CPPT), in which the bile-acid sequestrant, cholestyramine, was reported to reduce the incidence of coronary artery disease in adults with significant elevations in cholesterol. Almost all of the early pharmacoeconomic studies that followed focused on this agent. Later in the decade, the introduction of lovastatin, the first 3-hydroxy-3 methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitor (or “statin”), revolutionized the treatment of hypercholesterolemia, as it was significantly more effective than earlier agents (as were the other statins that followed it). Pharmacoeconomic studies of the statins generally have reported that, despite their higher cost, they are significantly more cost-effective than bile acid sequestrants. Recent long-term clinical trials, such as the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (WOSCOPS) and the Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study (4S), have provided firm evidence of the benefits of the statins in both the primary and secondary prevention of coronary artery disease. Formal economic evaluations were incorporated into most of these end-point studies—in contrast to morbidity and mortality trials of earlier lipid-lowering agents—and results from these evaluations are just now becoming available. The availability of primary economic data derived directly from large-scale, long-term clinical trials raises important questions about the future role of modeling in this area.