CardioExchange Archive

October 15th, 2012

FDA Reviewers Raise No New Red Flags Over Lomitapide

Larry Husten, PHD

FDA reviewers have raised no new concerns about lomitapide ahead of a Wednesday meeting of the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee.  The FDA today released briefing documents that evaluate the new drug application (NDA) for lomitapide capsules, the microsomal triglyceride transfer protein (MTP) inhibitor from Aegerion Pharmaceuticals. It’s intended for use as an adjunct to a […]

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May 17th, 2012

Study Casts Doubt on Protective Effects of Raising HDL Cholesterol

Physician's First Watch, CardioExchange Staff

A genetics-based analysis finds that raising HDL will not necessarily lower risk for myocardial infarction. Reporting in the Lancet, researchers describe a two-pronged approach. First, they searched for the presence of a specific allele (LIPG Asn396Ser, associated with higher HDL levels in carriers) in a large cohort of subjects with and without MI. The allele’s presence […]

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November 16th, 2011

Experts Clash Over AIM-HIGH

Larry Husten, PHD

Sparks flew at the AHA press conference yesterday when the designated discussant for the AIM-HIGH trial, Australia’s Philip Barter, said that “the design was such that in no way could it test the hypothesis” that niacin therapy may be beneficial. “This trial disturbs me greatly,” he said. The trial co-principal investigator, William Boden, defended his […]

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January 28th, 2011

Does CRP Level Modify the Benefit of Statins? Paul Ridker Reacts to New Data

Paul Ridker, MD, MPH

CardioExchange welcomes Paul M. Ridker, a leading researcher on the value of C-reactive protein (CRP) concentration as a prognostic marker of cardiovascular risk, to respond to the latest data on CRP and statin therapy from the Heart Protection Study (HPS). The New HPS Findings on CRP: The HPS investigators sought to determine whether statin therapy might […]

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November 23rd, 2010

How Should We DEFINE Anacetrapib’s Success?

Philip John Barter, MD, PhD and Christopher Paul Cannon, MD

CardioExchange welcomes Philip Barter and Christopher P. Cannon, two of the investigators for the DEFINE trial, which was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Here, they answer questions posed by CardioExchange’s editors. First, some background about the trial: In DEFINE, 1623 patients with or at high risk for coronary disease were randomized to receive […]

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November 19th, 2010

Will This Be the HDL Decade? REVEAL Revealed, Mixed Results for Apo-A1

Larry Husten, PHD

For a long time, HDL has been called the “good cholesterol.” Are we now entering the HDL decade? Two HDL-related trials were presented Wednesday at the AHA, and an array of additional trials are planned or underway, prompting the lead investigator of one of those trials, Chris Cannon, to speculate that this decade may be […]

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November 17th, 2010

Anacetrapib: “Knock-Your-Socks-Off Effect on HDL and a Jaw-Dropping Effect on LDL”

Larry Husten, PHD

Following the failure of torcetrapib in 2006, the future of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) inhibitors appeared quite troubled. Now, with the results of  DEFINE (Determining the Efficacy and Tolerability of CETP Inhibition with Anacetrapib), presented at the AHA in Chicago and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine, the future for this novel […]

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October 13th, 2010

Sequencing Study Identifies Gene Mutations Tied to Hypolipidemia

Larry Husten, PHD

By sequencing all protein-coding regions of the genome in two people with combined hypolipidemia, researchers have identified a gene that may lead to a new method to lower LDL cholesterol. The report by Kiran Musunuru and colleagues, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has its origins in a study started in 1994 of […]

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July 22nd, 2010

HDL and Residual Risk: A Surprising Finding in JUPITER

Larry Husten, PHD

CardioExchange welcomes Dr. Paul Ridker to answer questions about his recent paper in the Lancet, which analyzed data from JUPITER and found that HDL may not predict residual risk in patients on high-dose statins who reach very low LDL levels such as those achieved in the treatment group in JUPITER. The findings may surprise some readers, though […]

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