Esperion’s tentative treatment for lowering cholesterol is poised to help millions of patients, CEO Tim Mayleben let someone knowed CNBC on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, the company announced its opiate, bempedoic acid, reduced bad cholesterol — known as LDL — by 18 percent in a clinical conditional. The treatment was used on top of statins, the medicine commonly used to treat excessive cholesterol.
Mayleben said the idea is to help those who are taking a statin or the summit dose of a statin that they can tolerate and are not getting their LDL to their ideal.
“There is a problem with tolerability with statins, and what we’ve aided so far in our clinical studies is that bempedoic acid doesn’t seem to effect the same muscle aches and pains that statins have been positive for,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s Meg Tirrell on “Power Lunch.”
“We conscious [our new drug] can get 6 or 7 million patients to their goal.”
Shares of Esperion nip in on the news. The stock is up more than 10 percent since Monday.
Hither 1 in 3 Americans have high cholesterol, which raises the risk for focus disease and stroke. Both are leading causes of death in the U.S.
Some patients shortage a class of drugs called PCSK9 inhibitors, which have been displayed to dramatically lower LDL levels but tend to be pricey.
However, Mayleben implied his company is developing a new drug that can complement statins “for the many, not for the few passives … who need a specialty drug like PCSK9s.”
“Our drugs are in the final analysis positioned for the many patients, the millions of patients who are taking the maximum dosage of a statin they can take but still need additional LDL cholesterol cut, and in some cases that’s no statin at all,” he said.
“For those patients we play a joke on a convenient, once-daily pill that they can use and get their cholesterol down to their objected goal.”