Shares of Esperion Therapeutics (ESPR) are up about 29% after the company reported positive phase 2b results in treatment of hypercholesterolemia this morning. Esperion is using its own drug ECT-1002, which is given to patients in conjunction with current statin therapy. The phase 2b trial is known at ECT-1002-09 and it had recruited 134 patients who were randomized into taking a certain drug. Patients either took ECT-1002 120 mg, ECT-1002 180 mg or a placebo compound. These patients took one of these three therapies over a 12-week period and were then evaluated at the end to determine the cholesterol lowering ability of each drug compound.

The phase 2b results showed that the ECT-1002 120 mg drug lowered LDL cholesterol levels by 17%, and the ECT-1002 180 mg drug lowered LDL cholesterol levels by 24% in patients. This compares to placebo-only achieving a 4% lowering of LDL cholesterol levels in the body. In addition ECT-1002 demonstrated reductions of up to 30% in the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein hsCRP. This reduction in hsCRP is an added benefit in terms of efficacy because the hsCRP is an important marker of inflammation in coronary disease. The ability of ECT-1002 to lower LDL cholesterol levels in patients by a huge margin is important because obtaining the same results in Statin therapy is impossible. This is because Statin therapy has a lot of side effects and there is no way to raise Statin therapy doses to higher levels to achieve better efficacy without affecting the patient. These results create a way for these patients to lower their LDL cholesterol levels with the tolerable safety profile of the ECT-1002 drug.

Hypercholesterolemia is a disease characterized by too much cholesterol in the patient's bloodstream. A person needs a certain amount of cholesterol to aid the body in generating hormones and building compounds to aid in the digestion of fat in the stomach. The problem is that patients with hypercholesterolemia have an overabundant amount of cholesterol in the body and this leads to a higher probability of developing heart disease. About 1 in every 16 adult in the U.S. has high levels of cholesterol and many are at risk for developing heart disease. Esperion achieving positive results with its drug will help these types of patients lower their high levels of LDL cholesterol by a huge margin, which in turn will lower their risk of developing any type of heart disease.

Shares of Esperion have been on a huge upswing lately and with these latest efficacy results the trend may continue. Shares of Esperion had a 52-week low of $12.75 per share and since that time have now hit a new 52-week high of $100.19 per share (finishing the day at $99.60). The company does have another pre-clinical drug in the pipeline known as ESP41091 which is being created to target other big population target areas such as type 2 diabetes and obesity. If these target areas are ultimately achieved as well in mid-stage clinical trials and late stage clinical trials then this company may eventually gap up once again in share price along with other catalysts.

Update: After the market closed, Esperion announced a proposed $150M public stock offering for the purpose of completing the clinical development of ECT-1002 and developing a combination drug for statin-intolerant patients.