NEW ORLEANS — A cholesterol-lowering injection that’s been on the market for nearly a decade has now shown its power to cut cardiovascular events in people considered at high risk but who haven’t yet suffered a heart attack or stroke.
A study published Saturday in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented here at the American Heart Association’s scientific sessions concluded that Repatha reduced coronary heart disease death, heart attack, and stroke by 25% overall and lowered first heart attacks by 36% in people with high cholesterol but no history of these serious events. Their high cholesterol meant they were already taking statins or other cholesterol-lowering medications.
Repatha, made by Amgen, also reduced cardiovascular problems and prevented the need for stent and bypass procedures, meeting both endpoints of the clinical trial called VESALIUS-CV. That’s better than statin therapy, an older class of cholesterol-lowering drugs that became the best-selling medicines in the world.
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