Amgen (AMGN +2.73%) has gotten one important step closer to bringing its "bad" cholesterol-reducing treatment to market. The company announced that its evolocumab treatment met its primary endpoint in a Phase 3 TESLA trial, saying that the percent reduction of lipoprotein (the so-called "bad") cholesterol over time was "clinically meaningful and statistically significant."
In the company's words, evolocumab is "an investigational fully human monoclonal antibody that inhibits proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9), a protein that reduces the liver's ability to remove [lipoprotein cholesterol] from the blood."
TESLA is a two-part Phase 2/3 trial whose initials stand for "Trial Evaluating PCSK9 Antibody in Subjects with LDL Receptor Abnormalities."
The market for bad cholesterol-reducing medications is a highly competitive one, with several prominent pharmaceutical companies pushing to bring such treatments to market.
