A New Generation of Drugs Could Lower Heart Attack Risk for Millions

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Alex Ossola (0:33)

A new class of drugs could help millions of people lower their risk of heart attacks if the companies can show the medicine actually works.

Xavier Martinez (0:40)

Let's say that the drugs actually do help translate to better cardiovascular outcomes. They also have to show that they have a meaningful benefit.

Alex Ossola (0:49)

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Alex Ossola (1:06)

It's Wednesday, May 27th. I'm Alex Ossola for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM Edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

Tens of millions of Americans have elevated levels of lipoprotein A, a fatty particle in the blood. It's a variant of LDL, the bad cholesterol, and a driver of heart disease. Scientists have been chasing treatments for decades with little to show for it. Now, a new class of drugs has potential. They're currently in trials and if the drugs work, the companies could be on the verge of the next big market for heart drugs. It's valued at as much as $25 billion a year.

Journal reporter Xavier Martinez joins me now with more. Xavier, lipoprotein A or LPA has been difficult to treat for a long time. Diet and exercise don't really help because it's genetic. Other heart drugs like statins can actually raise LPA. What's different about these new drugs?

Xavier Martinez (2:03)

This new generation of drugs that are currently in late stage trials, they use genetic technology to almost silence the gene that tells the body to produce LPA. So the short version is your liver produces LPA based on genetic instructions, right?

These drugs intercept that signal before the liver can act on it, and they tell the liver to stop making so much of the particle.

Alex Ossola (2:31)

You mentioned that these drugs are in trials right now. How promising are they looking? And what still needs to happen before they can go in front of the FDA for approval?

Xavier Martinez (2:40)

The first phase three or latest stage trial by Novartis is expected to read out anywhere between in the next couple of weeks to the next couple of months. And there's two companies that are producing drugs that are going to follow this Novartis trial, and those are Amgen and Lilly.

The Amgen trial is going to read out hopefully in the next year or two, while Eli Lilly's trial will read out in 2029, is what it's expected. I should also say, Lilly is working on a pill version of this drug, and that's expected to be even easier to take up among patients. They don't have to do the injection for people who are afraid of needles or who think that might be too much of a hassle, and that would follow in the 2030s.

Alex Ossola (3:22)

Just to be clear on one point here, we know that higher levels of LPA are linked to heart disease, but it's not totally clear yet that a drug that then lowers those levels of LPA will help cut the risk of heart disease, is that right?

Xavier Martinez (3:38)

That's true. Modeling has sort of indicated that that is likely the case, but again, there's been many historical examples of drugs that really, really worked on paper and then just didn't turn out to be quite as effective in the human body. And so part of this is that, okay, let's say that the drugs actually do help translate to better cardiovascular outcomes. They also have to show that they have a meaningful benefit, right? A 5% relative reduction in the risk of stroke or heart attack, for a lot of analysts at least, is just not enough. So 13 to 20% would be considered a hit in the industry in terms of insurers covering it and doctors prescribing it and of course, the FDA approving the drug.

Alex Ossola (4:20)

That was WSJ reporter Xavier Martinez. Thanks Xavier.