Roche CEO confident about HDL drug

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The chief executive of Roche Holding AG said on Monday he remains confident about the company's experimental drug to boost "good" HDL cholesterol, despite the recent failure of a similar Pfizer Inc drug, and speculated it could post annual sales above $4 billion.

Pfizer's (PFE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) torcetrapib had been billed as a potential $10 billion-a-year drug until it was scrapped late last year following the deaths of patients receiving it in a late-stage trial.

The stunning failure of Pfizer's most important experimental product, which works by blocking a protein called CETP, cast a shadow on prospects for the Roche drug, dubbed R1658, which has been in mid-stage trials.

Roche (ROG.VX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Chief Executive Franz Humer on Monday told the Reuters Health Summit in New York that his company will decide in coming weeks whether to forge ahead with a late-stage trial of R1658, which it licensed from Japan Tobacco Inc (2914.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

"We've looked at the molecule and are very encouraged there is a way forward," said Humer. "We are certainly thinking about an (annual sales) potential of beyond $3 billion to $4 billion" if the drug succeeds in trials and is approved.

Researchers earlier this month presented data on torcetrapib that did not rule out the possibility that all drugs belonging to the class known as CETP inhibitors -- including R1658 -- may pose similar dangers.

But they said clues derived from the analysis of the $800 million Pfizer study of torcetrapib supported further review of other drugs in the class.

"To some extent, it confirmed our own findings on our CETP program," Humer said of the new information on torcetrapib.

He said Roche's decision on whether to move forward with R1658 will be based on data from its mid-stage trials of the drug and what he termed "encouraging" aspects of the data on torcetrapib.

An increase in blood pressure had been seen throughout the torcetrapib development program and had long been suspected of being the link to the increased heart problems.

But torcetrapib also appeared to have affected levels of electrolytes and other chemicals in the blood in ways that will require further study, researchers said.

Patients taking torcetrapib had a decrease in potassium and increases in serum sodium, bicarbonate and aldosterone.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson; additional reporting by Lisa Richwine and Sam Cage; editing by Leslie Gevirtz and John Wallace)