Twenty years after Mevacor, who would have guessed that the most successful attempts in cholesterol development would come not from companies that tried to copy the mechanism-of-action based development strategy, but rather from those that opted to launch branded dietary supplements?

But that’s exactly where industry finds itself these days. Between niacin and fish oil supplements are all the rage in lipid-lowering R&D.

Given the recent attention on drug safety, perhaps there’s no better time to look to long-marketed products like niacin and fish oil for a commercial payout. What better way to get around a more risk-averse Food & Drug Administration than by submitting applications for products that have a long history of safety and efficacy data?

With the statin class tapped out in terms of potency, and new classes like CETP inhibitors running into trouble, at least for the near-term, supplements marketed as prescription drugs look like the big winners in the cholesterol class.