Can an experimental cardio drug beat the odds?

For nearly a decade, drug companies have pursued a tantalizing hypothesis: improving good cholesterol, called HDL, can actually help prevent strokes and heart attacks. Unfortunately, nearly a decade of clinical trials have proven them wrong.

And, yet, here comes DalCor Pharmaceuticals, a Canadian startup that believes its drug improving HDL can help protect at-risk cardiac patients, at least those with a certain genetic variant. DalCor is announcing today that it is enrolling 6,000 patients in a study of the drug, known as a CETP inhibitor. Experts say the company will have to overcome significant scientific evidence and win over a deeply skeptical establishment.

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