: The official numbers for the sale of Lipitor are found on the Pfizer Website (www.pfizer.com). Look under the investor section and the financial and performanace coporate reports. For example, in 2004 Pfizer sold over $9,000,000,000 (9 billion) dollars of Lipitor. 
 Here is a little interesting math calculation that one may be interested in. It sheds light on several different aspects of the statin story. Lipitor is the largest selling drug in the United States and has been challenged in recent patent lawsuits, by companies wanting to produce a generic version. Pfizer won the lawsuits - no opinions on my part. There was serious discussion in the United States Congress and media that statin therapy be moved from a prescription drug to an over the counter drug. If this were to happen, who would monitor  
 adequate dose levels, regular blood tests, and how would adverse reaxctions be reported. After several weeks of discussion , this item disappeared from the new media. 
    This calculation is conservative and underestimates the number of people on daily lipitor therapy. At retail price Lipitor sells at about $3.00 per pill. That yields a yearly cost of  
 $1,095 per patient, if they do not have a subsidized health plan. If we round that to $1,000, 
 then there are 9 million people on Lipitor, without counting any other statin drug. 
    Another very conserative assumption, if we assume that only 1% of the lipitor patients experience significant side effects, then 90,000 patients per year are affected. This number is very large. No manufacturer of any product would want to admit that approximately 100,000 
 people are seriously affected by their medication. If they did the class action lawsuits would lead to final ruin. Merck, Inc. is now fighting the Vioxx litigation.  
    New medications have had a dramatic effect in either eliminating or minimizing many diseases and their debilitating effects. But as the number of users increase, the side-effects must be addressed and measures developed to eliminate them. The metric should not be the percent experiencing side efects, but more importantly the total number of persons being affected. This may sound like a personal opinion, but it is not. To contain medical costs and  
 provide a better statndard of health care to the populations of the countries of the world, it is important to minimize the amount of time that health care workers spend diagnosing and treating side-effects.