Bear,

yes my mind is indeed made up.  It is not from knowing more than what is publicly available...it is from running spreadsheets on all permutations and combinations.

For example, I arrive at 5000 patient years by back calculating the median 27 months and extrapolating the patients known to be in the trial as given by Dr Sweeney.  Second, I am assuming a 10% end drop out rate.  Even if you do +/-5% sensitivity analysis on the 10%, it does not significantly impact end results as cumulative patient years don't radically change.  Note that a smaller number of patient years means less MACE from placebo patients.  Therefore, logically the data also skews more to 5,000 patient years than to 4,000 patient years: an independent "check" if you will.

I am assuming a 20 to 30% RRR.  But no matter how much I play around with the numbers, it is impossible to get a significant gap in Crestor vs Lipitor groups MACE rates.  This is purely on statistical grounds, as Jupiter explained earlier. 

The only way my spreadsheets get to the 30% RRR that is bandied about on this board is a much lower MACE rate for the placebo group than the trial design of 7%.  Allow for that, and it all makes sense. Tada's explanation of changing standard of care over time, goes a long way to explaining why.

Finally, I want to trot out my notes from talking to DM several months ago: MACE rates came in much lower than RVX itself expected.  Again, that skews realized placebo rates much lower than design.