Not us. A survey of 101 primary care docs conducted by Deutsche Bank analyst Barbara Ryan has predictably bad news for Schering-Plough and Merck - the results suggest “both additional abrupt and sustained declines for Vytorin and Zetia, and increased utilization of other statins, especially Crestor,” she writes in an investor note this morning. The findings, by the way, are supplemented with data from ImpactRx.

Approximately 85 percent of the respondents in this survey were aware of the recent Enhance results, and about 75 percent expect that usage of Vytorin and Zetia will decline in their practices. (Our thought - where were the other 15 percent? Out of the country on a jaunt paid for by a drugmaker? How could they not be aware of the medical controversy of the moment?)

Anyway, Ryan’s survey results indicate that Vytorin share on average will decline from its current 16 percent share to 9 percent and Zetia share in this sampling will decline from 9.5 percent to 6 percent. Decreased usage reflects not only fewer new patient starts, but also a large increase in switching off to other meds from a current level of about 16 percent in the sample, to 38 percent in the future, she writes.

Despite a modest recent recovery in new scrip writing for Vytorin and Zetia following the initial January decline, the Enhance trial news at ACC appears to have had an immediate negative impact on prescribing practices of both PCPs and cardiologists, consistent with daily data available from other sources that incorporate changes imposed by formulary intervention, Ryan writes. The preliminary data also suggest that the decline in usage is not as steep as that seen in January.