The story
- Spanish · derived fromatorar“to clog”
- English todayatorvastatin
From ator- + -vastatin (“HMG CoA reductase inhibitor”). The prefix probably from Spanish atorar (“to clog”), wherein the verb suffix -ar was taken off. Thus, the role is "to inhibit the clogging (of cholesterol)".
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.