New Cholesterol Drug

Anacetrapib appears to lower LDL cholesterol while raising HDL cholesterol.
ABC World News (11/17, story 8, 1:40, Stephanopoulos) reported, "There's a potentially huge advance in the fight against America's number one killer, a drug that could turn back the clock on heart disease."
The New York Times (11/18, B4, Singer) reports that, according to a study published Nov. 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Heart Association meeting, Merck's experimental drug anacetrapib appears to increase "HDL or 'good' cholesterol even as it lowers LDL, the 'bad' cholesterol." The drug, which "works by inhibiting an enzyme called CETP, which is involved in transforming particles of good cholesterol into bad cholesterol," was tested in "1,623 patients who were already taking statins to control their cholesterol." Researchers at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital found that patients taking the drug saw a 39.8% reduction in LDL beyond what was seen in patients who got a placebo.
USA Today (11/18, Sternberg) reports, "Doctors caution that anacetrapib is experimental and must be tested in a bigger trial designed to show whether it actually prevents heart attacks and saves lives. If the drug succeeds, it will be at least five years before it can be sold in the US." Nevertheless, the drug holds promise, and some cardiologists are cautiously optimistic.
The AP (11/18, Marchione) reports that so far, there have been "no signs of the blood pressure problems that led Pfizer Inc. to walk away from an $800 million investment in torcetrapib, a similar drug it was developing four years ago."