Making enough of a difference
What if the needle in the drug development haystack ends up being too small to be useful?
US pharmaceutical company Merck & Co recently released some clinical trial results that surprised many people, including me. Merck has been developing anacetrapib – an inhibitor of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) – for many years now, as a potential treatment for cardiovascular disease. Several organisations have tried to develop CETP inhibitors, and every single one of them has come to grief in clinical trials, usually at huge expense. Merck’s drug succeeded in its trials, but that may still not be enough to convince the company to commercialise it.