Ann Arbor Esperion Therapeutics’ Stock Rises 35.1 Percent

By The Ann Arbor Independent Editorial Team On Oct 9, 2014 0

SHARES OF ESPERION Therapeutics surged in aftermarket trading Wednesday after the company reported positive clinical trial results for its experimental high-cholesterol drug ETC-1002.

The company said patients who were treated with ETC-1002 had bigger reductions in their levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol than patients who took an older drug, Merck & Co.’s Zetia.

Patients who took a smaller dose of the drug had a 27-percent reduction in LDL cholesterol, and patients given a larger dose had a 30-percent reduction. Patients who got the lower dose of ETC-1002 and a small dose of Zetia had their LDL cholesterol levels reduced by 43 percent. The 12-week midstage study enrolled 348 patients.

The Ann Arbor, Michigan, company said its drug also worked better than Zetia at reducing a market of inflammation in coronary disease.

Shares of Esperion Therapeutics Inc. climbed $8.58, or 35.1 percent, to $33 in aftermarket trading.

In June 2013 Esperion was taken public. Shares of Esperion Therapeutics Inc. jumped in their first day of trading after the drug developer raised $70 million in an initial public offering.

Roger Newton, the company’s founder, executive chairman and chief scientific officer, is a co-discoverer of the cholesterol drug Lipitor, the world’s top-selling drug for more than a decade.

Newton is a member of the Ann Arbor SPARK Board of Directors. In 2008, the Michigan and Wayne County Economic Development Corporations paid $3.5 million for lab space in Plymouth Township, Mich. in Ann Arbor SPARK’s name then leased space to Esperion and two other tenants.