Doctors Divided Over Loss of Experimental Cholesterol Drug

Pfizer compound sought to raise 'good' cholesterol, but trial revealed unacceptable death rate

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

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MONDAY, Dec. 4 (HealthDay News) -- While some heart experts are calling Pfizer Inc.'s decision to halt development of a promising new cholesterol drug a major disappointment, other experts note that existing medicines offer significant benefits.

Pfizer announced on Saturday that an independent board monitoring the developmental drug torcetrapib had recommended the clinical trial be stopped due to a disproportionately large number of deaths and cardiovascular problems among patients receiving the drug. Unlike traditional cholesterol drugs, called statins, that work by lowering levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol, torcetrapib was designed to raise levels of good (HDL) cholesterol.

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"It's big news," said Dr. Daniel Fisher, clinical assistant professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine. "This was going to be a blockbuster drug because it represented a new form of treatment -- raising HDL cholesterol significantly. It had a lot of promise to it. Heart disease is the number one killer," Fisher explained.

But not all clinicians agree that the loss of the drug is a devastating blow in the fight against heart disease.

"It's a significant disappointment, but it's not setting the field back," said Dr. Robert Myerburg, professor of medicine and physiology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "What we have that's good is good. It was anticipated that this would be another significant benefit, and it's not working out. But the notion of doom and gloom doesn't make any sense."

Dr. Raymond Gibbons, president of the American Heart Association and co-director of the Nuclear Cardiology Lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., added: "Whenever we hear that a potential new drug for the treatment of heart disease is not going to come to market, it's disappointing. However, that's the reason we do clinical trials and careful studies of these compounds before they're released for general use."

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