Health Highlights: Dec. 28, 2006

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors ofHealthDay:

6 More Firms Cleared to Sell Generic Zocor

Six more companies have been approved to begin selling generic versions of Merck's cholesterol-lowering statin drug Zocor.

The authorizations, posted Wednesday on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Web site, bring to eight the number of companies granted sanction to sell the generics since Merck's patent on Zocor expired in June.

The move promises to be a boon to consumers, since the newer versions of the pill are expected to drive down prices of the drug by as much as 70 percent,Bloomberg Newsreported on Thursday.

Teva Pharmaceutical and Ranbaxy Laboratories, the first companies to file for approval of generic versions of Zocor, also known as simvastatin, had earlier won six months of exclusivity to sell a generic version of the formula. Other companies now receiving F.D.A. approval to sell the medication are Cobalt Pharmaceuticals of Canada; Aurobindo Pharma, Zydus Pharmaceuticals and Dr. Reddy's Laboratories of India; the Sandoz unit of Swiss drug maker Novartis; and the Perrigo Company of Allegan, Mich.

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Statins Pose Low Risk of Acute Pancreatitis: Study

While cholesterol-lowering statin drugs such as Lipitor and Pravachol may increase the risk of painful inflammation of the pancreas, the side effect is relatively rare, a new study says.

Researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., found that while the drugs increased the risk of pancreatitis by 40 percent, the occurrence is rare -- only one of every 300,000 people taking the drugs for a year would be expected to develop the condition.

"Nevertheless, there are likely to be many millions of people on long-term statins, which means that scores of patients will face the serious complications of acute pancreatitis," cautioned Dr. Sonal Singh, chief researcher and an instructor in the university's Section of General Internal Medicine.

The study reviewed 33 spontaneous reports of statin-induced pancreatitis from the Canadian Adverse Drug Event Monitoring System and 20 published case reports. The researchers also pooled results from two observational studies on the association between statins and pancreatitis.