Esperion forms partnership with Cleveland Clinic, adds 3 positions

Esperion Therapeutics is forming a partnership with the Cleveland Clinic to develop new advances in HDL therapies to treat cardiovascular disease in what promises to be one of many more collaborations in the near future.The Ann Arbor-based firm and its CEO Roger Newton are responsible for creating Lipitor, which led to Esperion’s acquisition by Pfizer. Newton and his management team bought back Esperion in 2008 with the help of $22 million in venture capital. It is now developing new treatments for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in the Michigan Life Science Innovation Center in Plymouth, which is a wet lab small business incubator run by Ann Arbor SPARK.The Cleveland Clinic is world renowned as a medical research institution and many of its advances focus on cardiac care. The partnership will mean both institutions will work together on developing new therapies for HDL, which is more commonly known as the body’s good cholesterol.”We both have marching orders to do research on both sides,” Newton says. “We’re going to specialize in parts that we do best. It’s more synergistic and playing to each other’s strengths.”He adds that more partnership announcements will be forthcoming in the near future. It’s all part of making Esperion a more virtual company so it can continue to move its research forward in a difficult financing climate. Playing to the strengths of other large research institutions that specialize in cardiovascular research allows Esperion to get more research done faster without employing an army of personnel. That might have been the status quo procedure 10-20 years ago, but it’s not the best business practice when financing and venture capital are hard to come by.That’s not to say Esperion isn’t expanding its staff. It has grown to 13 full-time employees, 2-3 interns on average, and a large stable full of independent contractors. Esperion has hired three people in the last year and expects to add a few more as it grows in the near future.”We’re taking advantage of a lot of talented people in the area,” Newton says.Source: Roger Newton, President and CEO of Esperion Therapeutics and Troy Ignelzi, executive director of finance and business development for Esperion TherapeuticsWriter: Jon Zemke