"I have no idea why the realized placebo rate would be lower than trial design.  But from a purely mathematical point of view, it suggests a) MACE rate for the placebo has to be lower than what the trial was designed for, b) that makes it even more unlikely that the Lipitor/Crestor bifurcation can be statistically different."

There are way too many unknowns to support or refute your suggestion. We do not know the placebo event rate, apabetalone event rate, %RRR, p-value, number of patient years, or discontinuation/dropout rate. Due to these unknowns, a number of possibilities remain on the table, including apabetalone reducing MACE but just missing statistical significance, and apabetalone working even better in a particular subgroup with statistical significance (i.e. rosuvastatin, eGFR<60, etc.).

BearDownAZ