\n<\/p>\n
The drug giant Merck on Thursday announced it had received FDA approval for a daily pill that can be an alternative to statins for treating high LDL levels, or so-called bad cholesterol. The new pill, Lipfendra, is a version of a drug called a PCSK9 inhibitor.<\/p>\n
For decades the go-to therapy to treat high cholesterol levels has been statins, the most prescribed medication in the US. But statins come occasionally with side-effects like muscle aches and they sometimes don\u2019t drop cholesterol levels enough to meet recommended levels.<\/p>\n
Dr Puja Banka, associate vice-president for global clinical development at Merck and a pediatric cardiologist, said the development was important because statins are not doing enough to lower LDL levels to recommended levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeventy per cent of patients are not getting to their LDL goal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The new pill, she said, would be taken \u201cin conjunction\u201d with statins, though in some cases could be taken alone. She said the side-effects of the newly approved drug appeared minimal in trials, with no muscle aches. Its side-effects, she said, \u201cwere like the placebo\u201d.<\/p>\n
Merck said the new drug should be ready within weeks.<\/p>\n
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US and high LDL levels are known to cause atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), or plaque buildup.<\/p>\n
Acceptable LDL cholesterol levels vary according to a patient\u2019s history and risk, but according to new guidelines issued in March the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association recommend that levels should always be below 100.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo prevent a first heart attack or stroke, the LDL-C goal should be less than 100 mg\/dL for those at borderline or intermediate risk and less than 70 mg\/dL in those at high risk. For individuals with ASCVD who are at very high risk of ASCVD events, the LDL-C goal should be less than 55 mg\/dL for secondary prevention of cardiac events,\u201d according to the guidelines.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotionFree newsletter | Around 2-3 times a day<\/p>\n
Sign up to Breaking News US<\/span><\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The New York Times wrote that clinical trials show Merck\u2019s new drug can bring LDL \u201cdown to 50 or 60 or even lower\u201d.<\/p>\n Previously, this medication had to be taken as an injection. A pill is expected to make its use more widespread.<\/p>\n Merck says the drug\u2019s list price will be $10.50 a day, or more than $300 a month, though it says it expects out-of-pocket costs to be lower for many patients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The drug giant Merck on Thursday announced it had received FDA approval for a daily pill that can be an alternative to statins for treating high LDL levels, or so-called bad cholesterol. The new pill, Lipfendra, is a version of a drug called a PCSK9 inhibitor. For decades the go-to therapy to treat high cholesterol<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1631,10122,25013,252,9159,12522,150],"class_list":{"0":"post-51199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-announces","9":"tag-approval","10":"tag-cholesterolfighting","11":"tag-drug","12":"tag-drugmaker","13":"tag-merck","14":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}