Therapeutic Areas

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Cardiovascular Disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death among adults worldwide. People with hyperlipidemia are at approximatively twice the risk of developing CVD compared to those with normal total cholesterol levels. Elevated levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol particles are the root cause of atherosclerosis, the process that leads to heart disease.

In the United States, Europe, and Japan combined:

  • An estimated 235 million patients are or may be eligible for statin therapy¹

  • It is estimated that 118 million of these patients are not on therapy²

  • Another 73 million are on statin therapy but are not reaching their treatment goals³

Left untreated, elevated levels of LDL cholesterol can cause heart disease:

  • LDL cholesterol builds up in the walls of arteries

  • Deposits prevent normal blood flow and render the vessels stiffer

  • These deposits can suddenly break and form a clot that causes a heart attack or stroke

Diabetes

The global prevalence and mortality of diabetes have rapidly increased in recent decades:

  • Between 1980 and 2014, the number of people living with diabetes nearly quadrupled globally, from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014⁴

  • An estimated 1.5 million people died due to diabetes in 2019⁴

  • By 2045, projections show this number rising to some 700 million diabetics globally⁴

Genetic predisposition to high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol or high triglycerides is related to elevated type 2 diabetes risk.⁵ Specifically, the increased activity of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) results in lower HDL cholesterol levels and thus causes prodiabetic effects.⁶

Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevalent form of dementia and is the fifth leading cause of death in adults in the U.S. older than age 65. As populations age worldwide, the global burden of dementia including Alzheimer’s disease is expected to triple by 2050.⁷ The global cost of dementia care was estimated to be US$1 trillion in 2018 will increase to an estimated $2 trillion by 2030.⁸

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by:

  • Extracellular plaques

  • Amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptides

  • Intracellular neurofibrillary tangles

  • Hyperphosphorylated tau and microtubules

Elevated cholesterol levels have been linked to increased risk of Alzheimer's later in life. In healthy individuals, the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) gene is responsible for regulating excess cholesterol levels and Aβ plaques in the central nervous system (CNS). However, individuals who possess a variant of ApoE known as ApoE4, estimated to be 10% to 15% of the population, are unable to remove cholesterol or  Aβ plaques effectively enough to prevent accumulation in CNS.

Learn about CETP.

1. Primary and secondary prevention combined; assumes similar statin eligibility in EU and US (based on Ueda et al. Br J Gen Pract. 2017 and Lee et al. JAMA Cardiology 2017) and a population of 335M adults in the EU and 94.5M in Japan.

2. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2015). Prevalence of Cholesterol Treatment Eligibility and Medication Use Among Adults — United States, 2005–2012. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6447a1.htm

3. Ray, K. et al. (2020). EU-Wide Cross-Sectional Observational Study of Lipid-Modifying Therapy Use in Secondary and Primary Care: the DA VINCI study. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjpc/zwaa047. Last accessed 1 September 2021.

4. World Health Organization (2021). Diabetes [fact sheet]. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/diabetes.

5. Qi, Q (2012). Genetic Predisposition to Dyslipidemia and Type 2 Diabetes Risk in Two Prospective Cohorts. Diabetes. 2012 Mar; 61(3): 745–752.

6. López-Ríos et al (2011). Interaction between Cholesteryl Ester Transfer Protein and Hepatic Lipase Encoding Genes and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: Results from the Telde Study. PLOS One. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0027208.

7. Nichols, E. et al (2019). The estimation of the global prevalence of dementia from 1990-2019 and forecasted prevalence through 2050: An analysis for the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study

8. Prince, M. et al (2015). World Alzheimer’s Report 2015, The Global Impact of Dementia: An analysis of prevalence, incidence, cost and trends. Alzheimer’s Disease International.