“. . . .under many prescription plans, people could get Zetia and generic Zocor — Vytorin’s two components — for a significantly lower co-pay than just Vytorin.

Barclays Capital analyst Tony Butler said the overall drop in cholesterol drug sales likely is because late in the year people getting prescriptions through Medicare often hit the so-called “donut hole,” where their out-of-pocket costs jump dramatically, so they may delay refills or split pills.

He said some commercial insurers are moving Vytorin and possibly Zetia to nonpreferred “tiers” with higher copays. And family doctors, who write most cholesterol drug prescriptions, now have their heads “spinning around side effects and costs and whether lower cholesterol (goal) numbers are really that important,” he said.

“We’re convinced that the cheaper option is the option being used,” Butler said. . . .”

http://shearlingsplowed.blogspot.com/2008/12/impertinent-question-department-when-is.html

I cannot understand, given today’s unwelcome news that Vyotrin/Zetia continued to swoon, and swoon badly, in November 2008 — despite Mr. Hassan’s predictions to the contrary on November 24, 2008 — how last week’s $500,000 cash payout to GC Sabatino can be squared with the April 2008 much-vaunted Schering proxy-statement promises.

To be clear, the cash payout to Mr. Sabatino is lawful — it is just a very cynical way to do business.

Cash — without any earnout, is simply not paying for improved shareholder returns. They (shareholders) simply have had none, of late. So, niether should the two Toms — Sabatino and Koestler, in my view.