Cholesterol drug makers’ shares tumble

Shares of Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. sank Monday after heart doctors said millions of people taking the cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia should switch to older, cheaper drugs that work as well.

Schering-Plough dived 26%, the most since at least 1980, after doctors at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Chicago, where full results of a trial of the drugs were released Sunday, said physicians should limit prescriptions for the companies’ jointly sold drugs. Merck fell 15%, the biggest drop since Sept. 30, 2004, when it withdrew its painkiller Vioxx.

Late Monday the two drug makers were asked by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) to supply marketing budgets and other information involving Vytorin.

Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said e-mails supplied by the company indicated Schering-Plough and Merck may have delayed for more than a year releasing results of the trial, called Enhance, for “marketing purposes.” Grassley also asked for details about payments made to researchers and doctors who promoted the drugs, the senator said.

Spokesmen for both drug makers said the letter was just one in a series from Grassley’s committee and that their companies were cooperating fully.

The drug makers sold $5.2 billion worth of Vytorin and Zetia last year.

The study showing the drugs work no better than a generic medicine at one-fifth the price may cost the two companies $1.3 billion in sales this year and $1 billion next year, Goldman Sachs & Co. analyst Jim Kelly said in a research report Monday.

“This study provides no new evidence to support the use of this drug,” said Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist at Yale University who spoke for the cardiologists’ panel. “You’ve just seen a clinical trial that should change practice.”

The study had been expected since January, when preliminary research showed the Merck generic drug Zocor slowed artery clogging as well as Vytorin and Zetia. Zocor costs 80% less than the two brand-name drugs.

The preliminary study sent Vytorin prescriptions down 18% in less than three months. Schering-Plough shares fell 44% in the same period and Merck dropped 38%.

Schering-Plough fell $5.06 to $14.41. Merck dropped $6.56 to $37.95.