Pharmaceutical Business review

Samaritan drug shown to reduce cholesterol in preclinical trial

Lowering cholesterol is a key component in the prevention and management of heart disease. Earlier preclinical “in vitro” studies gave Samaritan reason to believe its proprietary peptide SP-1000 cleans the blood of excessive cholesterol and corrects high cholesterol conditions in people affected by the disease.

The preclinical data indicated that SP-1000 removes cholesterol from the LDL “bad” cholesterol-apolipoprotein complex, and it reduced blood cholesterol levels in two different types of hypercholesterolemic “animal models.”

“The novelty of SP-1000 as a new cholesterol therapy lies in its ‘mechanism of action,’ that is SP-1000 eliminates excessive cholesterol directly from the blood; in contrast, to all known current cholesterol therapies where the mechanism of action entails the enzymes responsible for cholesterol synthesis in the liver,” stated Dr Greeson, CEO of Samaritan.

“In addition, our drug comes at a time when quite a few of the cholesterol lowering statins are about to come off patent. We believe this is a drug that major pharmaceuticals will find compelling, as well as the patients who have extreme difficulty managing their cholesterol levels,” continued Dr Greeson.