The Garbage Trucks in Your Blood
The recent failure of a potential blockbuster drug designed to increase so-called 'good cholesterol' raises important issues about diet and heart health. What is HDL, anyway?
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Cholesterol-lowering drugs are big business. Really big. Just one of these drugs, Lipitor, generated almost $13 billion in sales this year for Pfizer, the drug company that makes it.
To its credit, Pfizer spent at least $800 million developing and studying a new drug, torcetrapib, designed to prevent heart attacks and strokes by increasing levels of HDL cholesterol ("good cholesterol") by up to 50 percent. They had high hopes for it. Just last month, the CEO of Pfizer, Jeffrey B. Kindler, said, "This will be one of the most important compounds of our generation."
Unfortunately, it wasn't.
Earlier this month Pfizer made a stunning announcement. They stopped the study because they found that torcetrapib actually increased the number of heart attacks and strokes. There were 60 percent more deaths in those taking the new drug compared to a control group that was not taking it.
While the number of heart attacks did not decrease, Pfizer's stock price did, falling by 11 percent, which decreased the company's market capitalization by about $21 billion in one day.(The stock has rebounded slightly since.) High stakes.
The most important lesson may be this: not everything that raises HDL is good for you, and not everything that lowers HDL is bad for you.
Discuss