The FDA just approved Effient , a blood thinner that will compete against the megablockbuster Plavix. The initial approval is for patients who undergo angioplasty (and typically get a stent) to unclog one or more arteries around the heart. Effient will carry a boxed warning alerting doctors and patients to the risk of serious bleeding associated with the drug. The FDA’s approval isn’t just a big win for Eli Lilly. It’s also a boost for Daiichi Sankyo, which discovered the drug and will co-market it in the U.S. with Lilly. Japanese companies have been responsible for several big cardiovascular drugs. Sankyo, one of the two companies that merged to form Daiichi Sankyo in 2005, discovered the cholesterol-lowering drug pravastatin, which was sold in the U.S. as Pravachol by Bristol-Myers Squibb. (Bristol, by the way, co-markets

Plavix with Sanofi-Aventis.) More recently, AstraZeneca has turned Crestor, a cholesterol drug invented by Shionogi, into a multibillion-dollar-a-year seller. This 2003 WSJ story described the prowess of Japanese drug discovery. But, like their American counterparts, Japanese companies have had a tougher time lately. Effient (also known by the generic name prasugrel) is the first Japanese-originated drug in a while that has a shot at being a big seller. A successful showing by Effient would be particularly welcome for Daiichi Sankyo; earlier this year, the company took a write-down of nearly $4 billion on its recently acquired majority stake in Ranbaxy, the Indian drug maker. Image of red blood cells by Janice Haney Carr via CDC

Here is the original post: 
Approval of Effient, a Plavix Rival, Boosts Japanese Drug Maker