"One of the seeming shortcomings of BETonMACE is the lack of a pitavastatin (aka, Livalo) arm......A potential synergy between pita and apabetalone with respect to boosting functional HDL, reducing vascular inflammation, enhancing plaque regression and reduction of MACE  awaits another long round of outcomes studies."

Welcome to the Agoracom board BETonRVX.  Keep in mind that very few patients in the Phase 2 trials were on a statin other than atorvastatin or rosuvastatin. They probably don't have sufficient, if any, clinical data on apabetalone in combo with pitavastatin. The pitavastatin/apabetalone synergy is a great hypothesis, but likely no evidence to support it and therefore no reason to include in BETonMACE. If successful, BETonMACE will likely be just the first of many trials for apabetalone or follow on compounds. There is never just one trial for a blockbuster drug. 

BearDownAZ