Next big thing? Big cholesterol drop with new drug

CHICAGO (AP) — An experimental Merck drug safely boosted good cholesterol to record highs while dropping bad cholesterol to unprecedented lows in a study that stunned researchers and renewed hopes for an entirely new way of lowering heart risks.

"We are the most excited we have been in decades" about a novel drug, said the study's leader, Dr. Christopher Cannon, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "This could really be the next big thing."

The drug, anacetrapib, won't be on the market anytime soon. It needs more testing to see if its dramatic effects on cholesterol will translate into fewer heart attacks, strokes and deaths. Merck & Co. announced a 30,000-patient study to answer that question and it will take several years.

But the sheer magnitude of its effects so far caused big excitement at an American Heart Association conference in Chicago, where results were presented today.