Jeffrey Thorp, a biologist working in the research laboratories of Imperial Chemical Industries in the mid-1950s, was the person who discovered the first fibrate, clofibrate. The therapeutic target was to achieve a delay or reversal of the progress of atherosclerosis by reducing the plasma concentration of cholesterol, which was considered at that time to be a major etiological factor. It was postulated that raised levels of cholesterol were due to disordered intermediary metabolism that was amenable to chemical modulation...