HDL-Raising Drug Flames Out

When doctors assess heart attack risk they frequently consider total cholesterol, bad LDL cholesterol and good HDL cholesterol. There are effective medications to lower total cholesterol and LDL, but raising good HDL has posed a challenge. The Swiss drug developer Roche has just pulled the plug on its HDL booster dalcetrapib because it didn’t demonstrate benefits in a large clinical trial. The 16,000 patient trial did not show any advantage for preventing heart attacks or strokes. This is the second time a drug designed to raise HDL cholesterol has flamed out. Pfizer gave up on a similar drug, torcetrapib, that was also capable of raising HDL cholesterol. The moral of the story seems to be that just modifying HDL does not necessarily provide the protective benefits seen in people with naturally occurring high HDL levels.