{"id":695144,"date":"2026-07-16T16:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T16:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695144\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T16:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T16:44:12","slug":"drugmaker-merck-announces-approval-of-new-cholesterol-fighting-drug-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695144\/","title":{"rendered":"Drugmaker Merck announces approval of new cholesterol-fighting drug | US news"},"content":{"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.<\/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 Paja 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

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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…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[102,6591,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-695144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-medication","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}