The Story of Coreg

Eliot Ohlstein, Ph.D.
Tian-Li Yue, Ph.D.

Robert Ruffolo, Ph.D.

Three GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) scientists are being awarded the 2008 PhRMA Discoverers Award for their work on GSK’s Coreg® (carvedilol), a pioneering and life-prolonging therapy for patients with mild to severe heart failure.

The award, presented annually, recognizes breakthrough medicines or vaccines resulting from outstanding research.  It pays tribute to scientists whose research and development of new medicines have greatly benefited humankind, and whose dedication to saving and improving peoples' lives exemplifies the best in the research industry.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) President and CEO Billy Tauzin (left) and Research!America President Mary Woolley flank PhRMA's 2008 Discoverers Award honorees Tian-Li Yue, Ph.D., Eliot Ohlstein, Ph.D., and Robert Ruffolo Jr., Ph.D. at a Capitol Hill news conference on February 7, 2008.

The three scientists being recognized for their work are: Eliot Ohlstein, Ph.D., Senior Vice President and head of the Cardiovascular & Urogenital Diseases Center of Excellence for Drug Discovery; Tian-Li Yue, Ph.D., Manager, Department of Investigative & Cardiac Biology, CVU CEDD; and Robert Ruffolo, Ph.D., formerly an R&D executive in a GSK heritage company and now President, Research & Development, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.

Coreg is being recognized as a pioneering and life-prolonging therapy for patients with mild to severe heart failure. After gaining rights to the molecule from Boehringer Mannheim, now part of Roche, GSK carried out the essential development work to define the unique characteristics of Coreg and the rationale for its use in heart failure and then to demonstrate its efficacy in that indication. Twice, trials of Coreg in heart failure were prematurely halted when the therapy proved to be so efficacious that independent monitors recommended that all trial subjects who had been receiving placebo in addition to then-conventional therapy be offered Coreg instead.

The award was presented at a Capitol Hill news conference on February 7, 2008, and the recipients will be further honored at PhRMA’s annual Discoverers Awards Dinner in March 2008.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) President and CEO Billy Tauzin speaking at the Capitol Hill news conference where this year's Discoverers Award and Clinical Trial Exceptional Service Award were bestowed. Pictured (left to right): Discoverers Award honorees Tian-Li Yue, Ph.D.; Robert Ruffolo Jr., Ph.D.; and Eliot Ohlstein, Ph.D.  They were joined by GlaxoSmithKline's Alan Metz, M.D.; Research!America President and CEO Mary Woolley; PhRMA's Billy Tauzin, and  Clinical Trial Exceptional Service Award honorees Milton Packer, M.D.; Michael Bristow, M.D., Mary Ann Lukas, M.D., F.A.C.C.; and patient Lacey Angioletti.