Because of the adverse effects, muraglitazar's developer Bristol-Myers Squibb decided to discontinue further development of the drug in May 2006.
Development of the drug has since been suspended.
The company, based in Salt Lake City, said it would discontinue development of the drug.
Dr. Mendelsohn's reputation rests largely on the development of the drug and related work in controlling cancer cell growth.
Furlong first learned of the company, from Sweeney, in 2000, and offered to help fund development of the drug.
In the early 40's, after working on industrial development of the drug in the United States, Dr. Heatley returned to Oxford to help with the British effort.
The development of the drug has at times been a battle between the hopes of parents and the more dispassionate science of some experts.
Development of the drug began in the laboratories of Ciba-Geigy, the Swiss pharmaceutical company that merged in 1996 with Sandoz to form Novartis.
In December 2006, the trial revealed that torcetrapib raised patients' risk of death by 60percentt, forcing Pfizer to discontinue development of the drug.
Critics, however, were outraged, pointing out that federal scientists made most of the discoveries and did the early development of the drug.
