Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death worldwide. Among cardiovascular disorders, coronary heart disease (CHD) caused by atherosclerosis is the most common cause of morbidity and mortality. Prevention, stabilization and regression of atherosclerotic plaques may have a major impact on reducing the risk of acute coronary events.~LDL-C lowering agents, primarily the statins, are the current mainstay in the pharmacologic management of dyslipidemia. However even with stain use, residual CHD risk from dyslipidemia remains. Epidemiologic and observational studies have shown that HDL-C is also a strong independent predictor of CHD, suggesting that raising HDL-C levels might afford clinical benefit in the reduction of cardiovascular risk.~Presently only niacin is approved by the FDA for HDL-C elevation and can raise HDL-C levels by 20-30%. However its use can be limited by a high incidence of flushing and, less commonly, by elevation of blood glucose and potential hepatic toxicity.~Cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) inhibitors are being explored for their ability to elevate HDL-C. A small molecule CETP inhibitor, torcetrapib, has been demonstrated to elevate HDL-C by 60-100%. However, a large clinical trial (ILLUMINATE) where it increased HDL-C by a mean of 72% compared to baseline was halted as it failed to show benefit. Post-hoc analysis of this study implicated an off-target increase in blood pressure as potentially counteracting any anti-atherosclerotic benefits. Post-hoc subgroup analysis showed that patients in the highest HDL-C quartile had a 57% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular events.~Increased blood pressure appears to be specifically related to torcetrapib as two other small molecule CETP inhibitors, anacetrapib and dalcetrapib, have not shown this in clinical trials and have been well tolerated. DRL-17822 has also not shown elevation of blood pressure in either animals or in normal volunteers.~This study will investigate the efficacy and tolerability of DRL-17822 as dyslipidemia monotherapy in patients with Type II hyperlipidemia.
The purpose of this study is to determine if a new drug, DRL-17822, is safe and effective in elevating high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and reducing low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in people with abnormal cholesterol levels that may put them at risk for heart disease.