Treatments and Market

Although there are current treatments for managing arterial diseases (e.g. coronary artery disease), physicians and patients are in desperate need for better medicines to combat these life-threatening conditions. AtheroChem is addressing these unmet medical needs by discovering and developing agents that can be used either chronically or acutely.

Drugs used chronically to treat atherosclerosis-related diseases include; statins, niacin, fibrates, cholesterol absorption inhibitors, low dose aspirin and antiplatelet agents. These drugs have been used for many years and have generated life-long sales in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The common distinguishing factor with most of these drugs is that they modulate disease risk factors, such as high plasma LDL-cholesterol.

AtheroChem is developing agents that can be administered on a chronic basis and which act directly on processes within the atherosclerotic lesions (see The Disease – A New Approach).

Patients with severe symptomatic atherosclerosis-related diseases (i.e. acute coronary syndrome) are often treated with more invasive and riskier products and procedures. Such drugs or products include; drug-coated stents, nitrates, antiplatelets, anticoagulants, thrombolytics/fibrinolytics, and medical procedures include; percutaneous coronary intervention (balloon angioplasty) and coronary artery bypass graft.

AtheroChem is currently developing a compound that has potential use in this patient population and which complements the current standard of care.