Spotlight on Roche dalcetrapib data to be presented at ESC

An abstract summarizing partial results from the Phase II dal-PLAQUE trial with Swiss drug major Roche’s (ROG: SIX) dalcetrapib has been released ahead of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) 2011 conference (August 27-31 in Paris).

The primary objective of the 130-patient trial is to evaluate cardiovascular (CV) safety of Roche‘s good-cholesterol-raising drug dalcetrapib (600mg) using surrogate biomarkers (MRI, etc), notes Amit Roy, an analyst at Nomura, who summarize the implications of information contained in the abstract and the factors to focus on during the final data presentation at the ESC, as follows:

Cardiovascular events were lower with dalcetrapib (two) than placebo (13) in the abstract. This is inconsistent with previous Phase II data at ACC 07 that showed numerically higher CV events with dalcetrapib (4% versus placebo 1%).