Pill’s $1.3 Billion Potential Spurs Study ShortcutBy Michelle Fay CortezA Swedish pharmaceutical company with no products on the market is hatching a drug-testing shortcut to catapult its experimental cholesterol pill into a potential $1.3 billion-a-year seller.Karo Bio AB's drug, eprotirome, is generating attention from researchers because, when it is added to Pfizer Inc.'s Lipitor, the combination lowers cholesterol levels more than Lipitor alone. Because eprotirome works in a novel fashion, regulators such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration require patient testing that can take at least five years and cost more than $500 million -- time and money Karo doesn't have. |