A new cholesterol-lowering pill that drives down the risk of heart attacks and stroke could transform the treatment of patients who cannot take statins due to debilitating side effects.
Experimental drug obicetrapib cut levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol by almost a third in just three months in a new trial.
And scientists from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio found it was even more effective taken in combination with a commonly prescribed drug ezetimibe, reducing by half the amount of harmful low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.
LDL is most closely linked with heart disease – one of the UK’s biggest causes of death.
Six out of 10 adults have higher than normal levels while five million take statins to keep down their cholesterol – but this does not work for everyone.
The obicetrapib study, published in The Lancet, revealed how researchers tracked 407 patients aged 68 on average. All were considered high-risk with LDL cholesterol levels above 4mmol/L despite taking medication or being intolerant to statins. NHS guidelines recommend keeping LDL below this threshold.
Over a follow-up of 84 days, researchers found among those who took the two drugs in combination, patients experienced a 48.6 per cent greater reduction in LDL cholesterol compared with the placebo. They also saw a 27.9 per cent greater reduction than with ezetimibe alone and 16.8 per cent more than with obicetrapib alone.
When used on its own, obicetrapib lowered LDL cholesterol by 31.9 per cent compared with placebo.
A new cholesterol-lowering pill that drives down the risk of heart attacks and stroke could transform the treatment of patients who cannot take statins due to debilitating side effects
Preventive cardiologist Dr Ashish Sarraju, who led the Cleveland Clinic study, said: ‘We need to give patients and their doctors all the options.
‘In higher-risk patients, you want to get LDL down as quickly as possible and keep it there as long as possible.’
Obicetrapib manufacturer NewAmsterdam Pharma stated that it expects to seek approval from regulators ‘over the course of the year’.
