8 September 2015 - Two new, powerful and expensive drugs to treat very high cholesterol are raising concerns about the ability of public and private insurers to pay and whether the benefits the drugs bring will outweigh their long-term costs.

The drugs — Praluent, made by Sanofi Regeneron, and Repatha, made by Amgen — have shown phenomenal results in driving down the levels of so-called bad cholesterol, or low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, in patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease who don’t respond to or can’t tolerate statins.

Many doctors say LDL levels should be below 70 milligrams per deciliter of blood in the highest risk patients and below 100 in other at-risk patients.

In one trial, Praluent drove LDL cholesterol below 25 milligrams per deciliter. Some researchers report even lower levels. The trouble is that nobody yet knows whether the drugs will prevent heart attacks, heart failure and strokes, and whether there are risks from pushing LDL levels too low. Larger, longer clinical trials are underway to get the answers, probably by 2017.

For more details, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/08/opinion/the-price-for-lowering-cholesterol.html?emc=edit_th_20150908&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=20088616&_r=0