In September, Amgen announced the purchase of Dezima Pharma, a Naarden, Netherlands–based company developing an oral cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) inhibitor to treat atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Amgen paid $300 million in cash, in a deal potentially worth up to $1.55 billion in development and sales milestones, to make the biotech a wholly owned subsidiary. Amgen gets Dezima's lead molecule, TA-8995, which in phase 2 trials markedly reduced low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), both as monotherapy or in combination with statins. Amgen's cardiovascular disease portfolio includes Corlanor (ivabradine) and Repatha (evolocumab), one of two recently approved PCSK9 inhibitors, with expected sales of $2–4 billion annually. By adding TA-8995 to its portfolio, the Thousand Oaks, California–based biotech expects to offer more treatment options with different mechanisms of action and modes of administration across varying LDL-cholesterol levels and risk profiles, said Amgen's executive vice president of R&D Sean Harper. Dezima originally licensed rights to TA-8995 from Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma. The news was followed by an October announcement by Eli Lilly that it will halt all trials of CETP inhibitor evacetrapib in the same indication. Lilly's CEPT inhibitor, in phase 3 clinical trials, measured LDL-cholesterol reduction in patients with high cholesterol, but a data monitoring committee recommended terminating the trial because there was a “low probability the studies would meet their endpoint.”

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