RNAi specialist Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s chief operating officer, James Weissman, told BioWorld that scientists inside and outside of the company have come to believe in what's called "the X hypothesis" in hepatitis B virus (HBV). "My view, though, as a person who has been in the pharmaceutical industry for decades, is who cares, anyway?" he said – as long as the drug works. He pointed out that, with the cholesterol therapy Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium) from New York-based Pfizer Inc., where he served in business development and marketing, "everybody had a different theory for why it lowered the incidence of heart disease. Nobody knew with certainty."