Back in the spring of 2012, Roche ($RHHBY) was forced to scrap its closely watched cholesterol drug dalcetrapib, a bitter setback that forced the company to start re-evaluating the entire R&D process while raising questions about the entire class. But now scientists in Canada say they have drilled down into the massive data files from the development effort and found that a subset of patients with the right genetic profile benefited greatly from the drug. They've published their results in Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics. And now they plan to follow up with a new study in an effort to revive the long-dead drug. "These results will lead to a genetics-guided clinical study in patients with the appropriate genetic background to allow review by health regulatory agencies and to provide personalized therapy with dalcetrapib. It also offers great hope for precision treatments for patients with cardiovascular diseases and for curbing atherosclerosis, the first cause of mortality in the world," said lead investigator Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, director of the Research Center at the Montreal Heart Institute and a professor of medicine at the University of Montreal. Release | Abstract