Scientists reveal structural secrets of enzyme used to make popular anti-cholesterol drug

(University of California - Los Angeles) The cholesterol-lowering statin simvastatin, first marketed as Zocor, has generated billions of dollars in annual sales. UCLA scientists discovered in 2011 that a mutated enzyme could help produce the much sought-after pharmaceutical far more efficiently than the chemical process that had been used for years -- and do it better than the natural, non-mutated version of the enzyme. But no one quite knew why, until another team of UCLA researchers cracked the mystery.
Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health - Category: Global & Universal Source Type: news