Few things:

1) This is the point I was bringing up yesterday regarding the health of the kidneys via abnormally high eGFRs. IF the data is right, then the patients for the most part still have high functioning kidneys which allows their bodies to better filter out inflammation than LIXA and EXAMINE patients. Kidney function is incredibly important for the long term survival of patients. Thus the better kidneys in the BETonMACE patients may be leading to drastically improved long term survival rates.

2) At the sametime, EXAMINE and LIXA patient groups were virtually identical across all metrics except for Time of randomization following ACS at roughly 52 and 75 days respectively. Examine's patients had a much steeper rise in MACE over the first 9 months. Now BETonMACE has an even faster time following randomization following ACS at just 34 days. BETonMACE patients also have much higher markers for inflammation. Thus, I suspect that the BETonMACE is similar in steepness to the EXAMINE patient group (if not steeper over the first 9 months), but then levels out dramatically afterwards. This is why we saw 200 in September and such a dramatic slowdown since.

3) Lastly, apabetalone theoretically and supported by data works better the longer it is in the system as the benefits feedback into the health of the patient. Furthermore, the drug is shown to have incredibly positive effects on inflammation. Ergo, any patients in BETonMACE that can survie the initial 9 month death wave, will have the benefit of higher functioning kidneys on top of Apabetalone to help drive out inflammation. Said another way, the drug certainly could be playing a very strong factor in the patient group on MACE reductions which is yet another reason why they've slowed to a crawl.

Pomp