Wow...
I'm currently involved in a project looking at the cholesterol drug market, and this was supposed to be, at least by some projections, to be the next $5-10 billion drug product. Safety was only recently raised as an issue, and it appeared to be minor.
I wonder if Pfizer is literally giving up on torcetrapib completely, or will they develop this for a high risk population? My guess is that Pfizer will give up completely, and not want to risk Baycol-like lawsuits.
It will be interesting to see how the market reacts tomorrow (Monday) morning to this. Stay tuned...
Pfizer ends trials, development of torcetrapib cholesterol drug
Pfizer Inc. said it has halted clinical trials and development of its important new cholesterol drug torcetrapib because of deaths and cardiovascular problems in patients who used it. In a statement, the company said that the independent Data-Safety Monitoring Board urged the company to end the clinical trial "because of an imbalance of mortality and cardiovascular events." Pfizer was developing torcetrapib as a drug to help boost good cholesterol that was seen as a potential follow-up to its top-selling product, Lipitor.
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