Esperion Therapeutics
| Public | |
| Traded as | NASDAQ: ESPR |
| Industry | Pharmaceutical |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Founder |
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| Headquarters | Ann Arbor, Michigan |
Key people | Timothy M. Mayleben (president and CEO) |
| |
| Total assets |
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| Website | Esperion.com |
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Footnotes / references financial information[1]:F-3,4 | |
Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. is a public, American pharmaceutical company focused on the development of a first-in-class, orally available, small molecule designed to significantly lower elevated levels of LDL-C - with the reduced potential for muscle-related side effects associated with statin use. The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
History
Pfizer acquired the original Esperion in 2004 for US$1,300,000,000 as a defensive move to prevent ETC-216 from falling into competitors' hands.[2]:165 Two years later, in 2006, Pfizer decided to kill the Esperion organization and development of ETC-216. In May 2008, Dr. Roger Newton, Esperion's founder and chief scientific officer, who co-discovered the statin marketed as Lipitor® — the most commonly prescribed LDL-C lowering therapy in the world and best-selling drug in the pharmaceutical industry’s history, raised sufficient capital to acquire rights to ETC-1002 and Esperion from Pfizer, thereby leading to a second independent period for the company.[2]:165[3][4] In June 2013, Esperion became a public company again through an initial public offering.[5] As of April 2014, Esperion was traded on NASDAQ under the symbol "ESPR".[6]
Product candidates
ETC-1002
ETC-1002 is an innovative, first-in-class, orally available, once-daily LDL-C lowering small molecule designed to lower elevated levels of LDL-C and to avoid side effects associated with existing LDL-C lowering therapies. ETC-1002 is absorbed rapidly in the small intestine and enters the liver through cell surface receptors different from those transporters that selectively take up statins.
Once in the liver, ETC-1002 inhibits ACL. Pre-clinical studies show that in the liver, ETC-1002 is converted to a derivative coenzyme, or ETC-1002-CoA, which directly inhibits ACL, a key enzyme that supplies substrate for cholesterol and fatty acid synthesis in the liver.
To date, Esperion has studied ETC-1002 in ten completed clinical trials and treated approximately 726 patients with ETC-1002 across completed Phase 1 and 2 studies.
References
- ↑ "Esperion Therapeutics, Inc.". EDGAR. Form 10-K. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. March 13, 2014. Commission File Number:001-35986.
- 1 2 Li, Jie Jack (2009). Triumph of the Heart: The Story of Statins. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195323573.
- ↑ "History". Esperion Therapeutics. Archived from the original on April 29, 2012.
- ↑ Catherine Shaffer (2008). "Pfizer jettisons Esperion". Nat. Biotechnol. 26 (7): 724–725. doi:10.1038/nbt0708-724.
- ↑ Huggett, Brady (December 2013). "Burning Bright". Nat. Biotechnol. 31 (12). pp. 1068–71.
- ↑ "ESPR stock quote". NASDAQ. Retrieved April 22, 2014.
Further reading
- Afuah, Allan (2009). "Case 10 - Esperion: Drano for your Arteries". Strategic Innovation: New Game Strategies for Competitive Advantage. Routledge. ISBN 9781135840501.