Pfizer Ends Studies on Drug for Heart Disease - New York Times

Pfizer Ends Studies on Drug for Heart Disease - New York Times:
By ALEX BERENSON
Published: December 3, 2006
"Pfizer announced last night that it had discontinued research on its most important experimental drug, a treatment for heart disease. The decision is a stunning development that is likely to seriously damage the company’s prospects through the next decades.
Preliminary research found that the drug, torcetrapib, appeared to be linked with deaths and heart problems in the patients who were taking it.
For people with heart disease, Pfizer’s decision to stop the trial represents the failure of a drug that many cardiologists had viewed as a potentially major advance in efforts to reduce heart attacks and strokes.
Torcetrapib is designed to raise levels of so-called good cholesterol. It was to be used in combination with older drugs called statins, like Lipitor and Zocor, which reduce so-called bad cholesterol.
As recently as Thursday, Pfizer executives had hailed the drug at a meeting with investors and analysts at the company’s research center in Groton, Conn.
“This will be one of the most important compounds of our generation,” said Jeffrey B. Kindler, Pfizer’s chief executive.
Pfizer is the world’s biggest drug company, with 106,000 employees and $51 billion in sales in 2005."