Dear Mark: That New Cholesterol-Lowering Drug Study
For today’s edition of Dear Mark , I’m answering one question. It’s a good one. A reader (many, actually) wrote in to get my opinion on the latest blockbuster cholesterol-lowering drug. A new study appears to show that the drug in question—Repatha—reduced LDL to unprecedented levels and protected patients against the primary cardiovascular disease endpoints they were measuring. What does it all mean? Should we all start taking Repatha? Let’s dig into it: Hi Mark, What’s your take on this study of a new heart disease drug called Repatha? Apparently it was able to reduce LDL levels to an unprecedented degree, and the lower the LDL the lower the heart attack risk. Yeah, I saw this. Here’s an article about it in the NY Times . Here’s the actual study . The Times article is positively gushing, recounting that the drug “significantly reduced the chance” of a “heart attack or stroke” in “men and women who had exhausted all other options.” What’d they take? Repatha is an PCSK9 inhibi