A new cholesterol busting drug hits the headlines

A new cholesterol busting drug hit the headlines last week. It all sounds very exciting and I was on the radio and in the newspapers sharing HEART UK’s excitement and enthusiastic about the potential for a new way to lower cholesterol.

The medicine isn’t yet available on the NHS and has yet to go through the formal approval necessary to make sure that it is safe and indeed offers good value for the taxpayer. Similar cholesterol lowering medicines such as PCSK9i are also injected, rather than a tablet like statins but only available under certain criteria set out by the regulatory body NICE. What we don’t yet know is if this similar medicine will only be available in certain circumstances, such as if someone has had a heart-attack and can’t lower their cholesterol or they have FH. It would be highly unusual that this new medicine would be offered to people rather than a statin, which is the usual and most effective first medication option.

Other similar injectable medicines are only available from specialist clinics, such as lipid clinics and not prescribed by GPs so it will be interesting to see the detail which goes far beyond the headlines we all read last week.