Image Source: Lilly.com

Today Eli Lilly (LLY) announced that it had discontinued development of a drug intended to inhibit cholesterol esterase transfer protein (CETP). The drug, known as evacetrapib, was in a phase 3 clinical trial to treat patients with high risk of cardiovascular disease. The phase III study, known as the ACCELERATE trial, recruited up to 12,095 patients who were randomized to receive two different drugs. 

One group of patients received Lilly's drug evacetrapib and the other group of patients received a placebo compound instead. The primary outcome measure was to be determined as time to first occurrence of a cardiovascular event. Such cardiovascular events could have been: 

The phase 3 trial was stopped early by a committee known as the independent data monitoring committee — IDMC. The IDMC concluded that after analyzing periodic data the trial should be stopped early. According to the data, there was no indication that the study could reach its its endpoint, with no evidence of efficacy. The only good news that came out of from the trial was that the drug had no safety issues.  Eli Lilly will present the data at an upcoming scientific presentation to show in detail the final results. 

The share price of Eli Lilly closed the day down 7.7%, which is a major hit for the stock. Analysts were expecting possible peak sales of this drug to be upwards of $5 billion. This company states that this wasn't a huge setback, but we claim the opposite as it was a huge potential loss in revenue. Various drugs in the same family either were pulled for safety reasons or for lack of efficacy, and at this point Lilly is finally throwing in the towel.