Discovery of the First Statin Claimed by Japanese

From Today's Wall Street Journal: It took two years and thousands of moldy broths for Akira Endo to find something that reduces cholesterol. His breakthrough, drawn from a mold like one that grows on oranges, turned out to be the first in a class of medicines that today brings $25 billion a year to pharmaceutical companies. The fungal byproduct that Dr. Endo originally discovered shares the same basic chemical structure as three of the biggest-selling anticholesterol drugs: Zocor, Pravachol and Mevacor