After learning that a person with high cholesterol (fat in the blood) is more likely to have a heart attack or stroke, scientists rolled up their sleeves to produce a drug that would lower the rate of fat in the blood and balance cholesterol.
Statins are a group of medicines that can help lower the level of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in the blood. LDL cholesterol is often referred to as "bad cholesterol", and statins reduce the production of it inside the liver.
In 1959, scientists working at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Germany, discovered that the reducing enzyme HMG-CoA greatly contributes to cholesterol production in the human body. This discovery prompted scientists around the world to develop a drug that could inhibit the formation of this enzyme, thereby lowering cholesterol levels. This paved the way for the development of statin-type drugs, also known as Simvastatin.
Akira Endo (born 14 November 1933) is a Japanese biochemist whose research into the relationship between fungi and cholesterol biosynthesis led to the development of statin drugs, which are some of the best-selling pharmaceuticals in history.
In 1976, Japanese researcher Akira Endo from Sankyo obtained the first inhibitor that can slow down the reducing enzyme HMG-CoA from the fungus Penicillium citrinum. Endo began his studies with fungi and molds, simply because his specialty was fungi and molds. In 1979, Merck & Co. in the United States. company Carl Hoffman and his colleagues obtained MK-733, later called Simvastatin, from the fungus Aspergillus terreus. However, Compactin's clinical trials in 1980 were halted after rumors of the substance cause cancer in dogs. Following this event, studies on the drug continued to be interrupted.
In July 1982, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave Merck special permission, paving the way for the company to try Simvastatin on people with extremely high cholesterol. As a result of the experiments, it was observed that Simvastatin showed extremely positive results with very few side effects on these patients, and the FDA approved the use of statin in 1987.