Experimental drug boosts HDL counts.

A novel drug called torcetrapib can dramatically increase blood concentrations of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the beneficial cholesterol, according to a preliminary study. Derived from a trial involving only 19 people, these data paved the way for two much larger studies that are just under way.

Seventeen men and two women took a torcetrapib pill daily for 4 weeks, then an inert pill for 4 more weeks. Scientists recorded the amount of HDL in the volunteers' blood after each period. Some of the volunteers also completed a third drug regimen, in which they took torcetrapib twice a day.

Nine of the participants took the anti-cholesterol drug atorvastatin along with torcetrapib.

The volunteers' HDL scores rose significantly while they took torcetrapib, with or without atorvastatin, the researchers report in the April 8 New England Journal of Medicine. Their HDL scores rose even higher after they took torcetrapib twice a day--more than doubling from an average of 34 milligrams per deciliter of blood after taking only the inert pill to 70 mg/dl. A desirable HDL score is considered to be 40 mg/dl or higher.

Torcetrapib hikes HDL concentrations by suppressing a compound called cholesteryl ester transfer protein, says study coauthor Ernst J. Schaefer, an endocrinologist at the New England Medical Center and Tufts University in Boston. On the other hand, atorvastatin, a member of the statin drug family, works primarily by lowering concentrations of low-density lipoprotein, the harmful cholesterol.

Statins and torcetrapib "seem to be made for each other," says Schaefer.--NS