10 Best-Selling Products Of All Time


#9 Lipitor

Category: Pharmaceutical

Units sold/sales: $125 billion revenue

Parent Company: Pfizer

Lipitor, which came ninth on the list of 10 Best-selling Products of All Time compiled by 247wallst.com, is a trade name of a calcium salt (Atorvastatin) marketed by Pfizer. This drug, which is a member of the drug class known as statins, is used for lowering the level of LDL—the so called bad cholesterol—in the blood. The drug also stabilizes plaque and prevents strokes through anti-inflammatory and other mechanisms.

It was first synthesized by Bruce Roth of Parke-Davis Warner-Lambert Company (now Pfizer) in 1985. It is the best-selling drug in the pharmaceutical history and its sales generated revenue of $125 billion when it got approved for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1996. Though it was not the first in its class, its ability to reduce cholesterol and significant advertising quickly propelled it to the top of its class of drugs and it could top the list of best-selling branded pharmaceuticals in the world for nearly a decade.