Medscape (3/2, Lowes) reports, “The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced that it is revising the labels of certain statins as well as protease inhibitors for HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) to warn about interactions between the 2 sets of drugs that could increase the risk for myopathy and kidney failure.”

The Article states HIV and HCV protease inhibitors can boost blood level of the statins if they are taken together with the affected statins. This leads to myopathy. FDA has listed lovastatin, simvastatin, atorvastatin, and rosuvastatin as statins and they  will need label changes in order to address interaction risks with HIV and HCV protease inhibitors.

 MedPage Today (3/1, Peck) reportes atorvastatin (Lipitor), rosuvastatin (Crestor), and simvastatin (Zocor) have been chosen to have new warnings and restated warnings regarding mixing lovastatin (Mevacor) with HIV and HCV drugs.  Thursday’s “FDA safety communication follows label changes announced Tuesday that added cautions about new onset diabetes and transient memory problems for users of any of the cholesterol-lowering drugs in the statin class.”