New drug to slash cholesterol levels

London, March 11 : A team of researchers, including scientists from Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet, has found that a thyroid-hormone-like substance that works specifically on the liver reduces blood cholesterol with no serious side effects.

High cholesterol levels in the blood are primarily treated with a group of drugs called statins, but they are not always sufficiently effective and higher doses commonly cause adverse reactions.

The new finding is based on a clinical trial, which showed that a novel drug substance called eprotirome can reduce blood cholesterol effectively in patients who have already received statins.

Patients who were given supplementary medication with eprotirome demonstrated levels of harmful blood fats that were up to 30 per lower than those of patients who received a placebo supplementary treatment.

The trial lasted three months and included a total of 189 patients. It remains to be studied whether the drug candidate will be equally safe and effective for a larger group of patients over a longer period of time.

"This drug could help patients who react adversely to statins or be used as a supplementary treatment for those who don''''t respond well to them," said Professor Bo Angelin, lead author of the study.

Eprotirome mimics the natural ability of thyroid hormone to stimulate the metabolism of cholesterol, and exerts its effects exclusively on the liver.

Pharmaceutical company KaroBio in Huddinge, which is financing and participating in the research, has been developed eprotirome.

The study has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine.