Esperion management has achieved extraordinary success by any measure. Researching and developing new drugs is a high-risk endeavor. Research teams often spend their entire careers without achieving success. Pharmaceutical companies spend millions to develop compounds that never see the light of day. Esperion Founder, President, and CEO Roger Newton was the co-discoverer and chairman of the discovery team for Lipitor®, the best-selling drug in the history of the pharmaceutical industry. Newton and his team again achieved remarkable success when the original Esperion and its cholesterol-regulating compounds were sold to Pfizer for $1.3 billion in 2004. The Esperion team includes world-class drug developers, biologists, chemists, and clinical experts. The team has the expertise to secure financing, as well as manage all stages of drug discovery and development, knowing what it takes to bring a new drug to market.

Esperion focuses all of its efforts on areas of significant unmet medical need. Continued success of blockbuster drugs - those that treat millions of patients with the most common diseases - is no sure thing. Future success will be achieved through innovative approaches that produce specific clinical benefits. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and the number of those afflicted continues to grow. Yet most current drugs target the symptoms of this complex disease, rather than prevent its onset or reverse its course after the disease strikes. In addition, many existing therapies treat only a single risk factor and do not address underlying imbalances. As a result, many patients continue to suffer from a compromised quality of life and must still endure the ordeal of coronary angioplasty, coronary artery bypass grafts, or open-heart surgery, often more than once.

Esperion brings exceptional understanding of how the body makes, uses, stores, and eliminates cholesterol and other lipids in the blood and their role in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Esperion was the first to demonstrate the positive impact of therapies designed to mimic or improve upon HDL cholesterol function by enhancing the removal of cholesterol from the arteries. Esperion intends to build on that expertise, exploring a variety of pathways to better regulate lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. This integrated approach to health and disease management seeks to identify novel treatments for the full spectrum of cardiovascular and metabolic disease, from early risk factors to acute coronary syndromes to regression of atherosclerosis.

Esperion is innovative and fast moving. It responds to the dynamics of drug discovery and development by acting quickly, being flexible, and having the courage to go where others have not. We know how to move through the discovery and development process skillfully, reducing the risks inherent in our work. Our team is small and unencumbered by bureaucracy, able to focus exclusively on advancing science. Over the years, we've developed an extensive network of suppliers and partners who can be called upon at a moment's notice for additional expertise and resources. We share with all our partners a sense of urgency and commitment to speeding the development and delivery of new treatments for patients around the world.