The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has recommended the granting of a marketing authorisation for Praluent (alirocumab) to lower high levels of cholesterol in the blood of people who are unable to control their cholesterol despite taking optimal doses of statins or who cannot take statins. The medicine should be used in addition to a healthy diet. Other lipid-lowering therapies (statins and others) should also be used if tolerated.

High levels of cholesterol in the blood are common risk factors for heart disease, which is the leading cause of death globally.

Praluent belongs to a new class of medicines called PCSK9 inhibitors, which provide new options for the treatment of high cholesterol, an area where only few effective therapies have emerged since the introduction of statins. It is the second representative of this new type of monoclonal antibody (a type of protein) to be recommended for approval in the European Union (EU). Praluent blocks the PCSK9 protein, which would otherwise lower the number of LDL-receptors in the liver and through this, diminish the liver's ability to remove LDL-cholesterol (‘bad cholesterol’) from the blood.

For more details, go to: http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/news_and_events/news/2015/07/news_detail_002377.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac058004d5c1