Merck Just Won The Race For The First Cholesterol Pill: What It Means For Your Heart And Your Portfolio

A Pill That Does An Injection’s Job Who Are The Biggest Winners? The clearest winners are patients who need more than a statin and have resisted the needle. That includes people with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, a genetic condition that drives LDL dangerously high, along with the large group who remain above their target despite maximum statin therapy or who cannot tolerate statins at all. With this pill, the chances of these people adhering to their drugs are much higher. With a once daily pill that fits into a routine that already includes other tablets, patients who balked at self-injection now have a reason to keep going. Better adherence to LDL-lowering therapy tends to translate into fewer cardiovascular events over time, which is the en...