year: 1976
In 1971, akira endo was a japanese microbiologist working for Sankyo looking for microbial metabolites which would inhibit HMG CoA reductase. His belief that this culd lower plasma cholesterol. He tseted more than 6000 microbial strains and isolated a potent inhibito from penicillium citrinum which lowered serum cholesterol in experimental animals and was called compactin
Endo showed that cmopactin was potent inhibitor of cholesterol syntheses in vitro in the fibroblasta from Goldstein and Brown
In vivo studies showed that compactin lowered serum cholesterol levels in dogs and monkeys but not in rats.
In 1980, workers at Merck discovered a second HMG COA reductase inhibitor called mevinolin from aspergillus terreus which was later called lovastatin. In 1987 they proceeded with the cliical development of lovastatin which was the first HMG CoA reductase inhibitor to be licensed for use in humans.
During the 1990s a sereis of clinical trials established unequiviocally that lowering LDL cholesterol with statins resulted in significant decreases in cardiovascular and total mortailty wihtout any increase in noncardiovascular morality and few serious side effects.