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Pfizer Agrees to Acquire Esperion for $1.3 Billion
By RON WINSLOW
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

NEW YORK -- Pfizer Inc., in a move to bolster its development of a new approach for treating heart disease, agreed to acquire a small biotechnology firm called Esperion Therapeutics Inc. for $1.3 billion.

Esperion, of Ann Arbor, Mich., is developing a line of medicines aimed at harnessing the benefits of HDL, or good cholesterol, in the treatment of heart patients. A small study published last month showed that its leading drug not only halted, but rapidly reversed the progression of heart disease in some patients -- a finding that astonished experts in the field of cardiology.

The acquisition, to be made through a cash tender offer that will be launched in the next several days, would join Esperion's HDL program with Pfizer's own effort in the same area and build upon the New York firm's already formidable position in treating cholesterol disorders. Pfizer's drug Lipitor, the world's top-selling medication, which is bringing in sales of more than $8 billion annually, lowers LDL, or bad cholesterol.

A 54% Premium
Under terms of the deal, Pfizer will pay Esperion holders $35 a share, which officials of both companies said represents a 54% premium over Esperion's average closing price in the past 20 days. The deal was announced Sunday; as of 4 p.m. Friday, Esperion shares rose 13 cents to $22.70 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.

"We feel the next great leap in cardiovascular research is going to be the reversal of atherosclerosis," said John LaMattina, president, Pfizer global research and development. Esperion's portfolio of HDL drugs combined with Pfizer's experimental drug called torcetrapib "made it a wonderful complementary match," he said.

For Esperion, the acquisition will provide Pfizer's substantial resources and drug-development expertise, making it possible to get its medicines to market faster than it could do on its own, said Roger Newton, Esperion's president and chief executive. The company currently has no products on the market.

Statins
Until now, cholesterol treatments -- especially the blockbuster category called statins, to which Lipitor belongs -- have focused mostly on lowering bad cholesterol. While statins significantly reduce the risk of heart attacks and death from heart disease, they don't solve the problem. As many as half of heart attacks happen to people whose LDL is considered normal, but oftentimes it turns out their HDL is low. That is one reason heart experts and pharmaceutical firms believe there is a potentially major market for drugs that could raise HDL.

But there are hurdles. While high HDL is linked to better heart health, there isn't yet a body of evidence showing that raising HDL will reduce heart attacks or improve survival. The study that provoked interest in Esperion's most prominent drug, known as ETC- 216, involved just 47 patients. Both Drs. LaMattina and Newton said much work lies ahead before the medication, or a couple of others in Esperion's portfolio, have legs to make it to market.

Unlike Lipitor, which is a pill, Esperion's two leading candidates are both biotech medicines that are given by infusion and are intended to treat patients suffering acute symptoms of heart disease -- including worsening chest pain known as acute coronary syndrome. Pfizer's HDL drug torcetrapib is a pill that is being tested in Phase III, or late stage, clinical trials in combination with Lipitor to treat chronic characteristics of heart disease.

Raises HDL
In early trials, the combination of Lipitor and torcetrapib, which acts by inhibiting the action of so-called cholesterol ester transfer protein, raised HDL by 40% to 50%, compared with a very small HDL rise with Lipitor alone. The experimental medication also enhanced Lipitor's LDL cholesterol lowering by about 10 percentage points, according to Pfizer.

Pfizer is awaiting approval from the Food and Drug Administration on another medicine that combines its top-selling blood-pressure pill Norvasc with Lipitor, to be marketed to patients with both high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

In agreeing to acquire Esperion, Pfizer also gets Dr. Newton, who, as a scientist at the former Warner-Lambert Co., was an important developer of Lipitor. He will continue to head development of the Esperion product lineup. Pfizer acquired Warner-Lambert in 2000.

Comment:
Imagine they pay 1.3 billion for this presumptive plaque reversal with HDL based on 47 people seeing a little plaque reversal (4%) and we have an affordable and safe oral program that prevents the DEATHS from heart attacks. Because their idea is patentable they put all this money into something that patients probably do not need!

It may be that preventing deaths from heart attacks and strokes is far more important to most patients than the hope that they see some plaque reversal from an IV therapy particularly when the patients learn that the plaque seen on arteriograms has little to do with whether you live or die.

They big boys in BIG PHARMA are playing the money game and they can get it all wrong so easily!

IV infusions of HDL are NOT the long-term answer to stopping heart attacks!

Preventing fatal blood clots is far more pertinent and with the products Beyond Chelation IMPROVED and the exciting total array of leading ENZYME products, Endokinase, Endozym, Wobenzym, your patients should have NO FATAL BLOOD CLOTS and, thus, NOT be in the 1.9 MILLION who DIE each year from these clots! And not from plaque gradually closing off arteries since as they gradually close, you build COLLATERAL CIRCULATION around the obstruction.

Sincerely,
Garry F. Gordon, MD,DO,MD(H)

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