DAVOS, Switzerland |
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – The jury is still out on a advantages of augmenting “good†HDL cholesterol, nonetheless a plan stays value pursuing, notwithstanding new setbacks, a arch executive of Merck Co pronounced on Thursday.
Confidence in a HDL topic suffered a uninformed blow final month when a vital clinical hearing of Merck’s Tredaptive medicine failed. That followed progressing failures with dual other HDL-boosting drugs from Pfizer and Roche.
The Pfizer and Roche drugs worked differently to Tredaptive, by stopping a protein called CETP, and Merck is also building a pivotal initial product in this area.
Merck CEO Ken Frazier, vocalization in Davos on a sidelines of a World Economic Forum, pronounced a U.S. drugmaker would continue to press forward with clinical investigate on HDL raising, even nonetheless a systematic box so distant remained inconclusive.
“The Tredaptive disaster is another square of justification on a side of a scale that says HDL lifting hasn’t nonetheless been proven,†he said.
“I don’t consider by any means, though, that a doubt of HDL lifting as a certain cause in cardiovascular health has been settled.â€
Tredaptive, that is now being taken off a marketplace in those countries where it was sold, total an extended recover form of niacin, to lift HDL, with a drug to cut a occurrence of facial flushing that is a side outcome of niacin therapy.
Merck is building another drug called anacetrapib, that targets CETP and raises HDL cholesterol by most some-more than niacin, to see if it can revoke risks of heart attacks and stroke.
If that hearing succeeds, anacetrapib would residence a outrageous market, and a medicine could be a wilful cause in Merck’s blurb success in a years ahead.
But investors’ certainty in a whole proceed of lifting HDL is shaky.
“It’s positively not a impact dunk, nonetheless we trust that given a properties of a drug, it is an examination good value conducting,†Frazier pronounced of a ongoing anacetrapib trial.
Anacetrapib belongs to a same cholesterol-ester send protein (CETP) category as Pfizer’s high-profile drug torcetrapib, that was ditched in 2006 due to inauspicious side effects, and Roche’s dalcetrapib, that was forsaken final year due to miss of efficacy.
On both those fronts, Frazier believes a Merck product has an edge, given there is no justification that it causes a neglected side effects seen with torcetrapib, and it is also means to reduce “bad†LDL, that Roche’s product did not.
Another identical drug, evacetrapib, is underneath growth from Eli Lilly.
(Editing by Will Waterman)
