FDA OKS DRUG THAT LOWERS CHOLESTEROL IN NEW WAY

U.S. regulators on Friday approved a new type of cholesterol-lowering drug aimed at millions of people who can’t tolerate — or don’t get enough help from — widely used statin pills like Lipitor and Crestor.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Esperion Therapeutics Inc.’s Nexletol for people genetically predisposed to have sky-high cholesterol and people who have heart disease and need to further lower their bad cholesterol. The daily pill is to be taken in conjunction with a healthy diet and the highest statin dose patients can handle, the FDA said.

High LDL, or bad cholesterol, is one of the top risks for heart attacks and other problems. Studies showed that

Nexletol could lower LDL by about 25 percent when taken alone and by an additional 18 percent when combined with a statin.

“This is a nice alternative” to statins, but those medicines will still be the first choice, said Dr. Christie Ballantyne, Baylor College of Medicine’s cardiology chief.

Millions of people take cheap, generic statins, but the medicines don’t lower LDL cholesterol enough for many patients and others experience side effects such as muscle pain.

Nexletol works in the liver by blocking an enzyme needed to make LDL. Statins also block cholesterol production in the liver, but in a different way, so the drugs together can reduce LDL more.