Abstract
Marc Beer recognized an opportunity when he joined Cambridge, Mass.-based Aegerion Pharmaceuticals as chief executive officer in 2010. The prospect was called lomitapide. First developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb, the drug had failed as a general-purpose cholesterol treatment in Phase I clinical trials. Aegerion, which acquired rights to the molecule in 2007, wasn’t faring much better in its attempt to revive it as a drug for patients who can’t tolerate the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins. Beer, however, envisioned using it as a therapy for homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH), a rare genetic disease that affects the liver and often causes heart failure. Beer was looking for a challenge. A former executive at Abbott Laboratories and Genzyme, Beer had formed a stem cell research firm, ViaCell, and sold it in 2007. He then took three years off after his wife’s death because of a pulmonary embolism. Offered the CEO job at Aegerion, ...
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