The medication, which significantly lowers the risk of heart attacks, could be a promising alternative to expensive and unpopular injectables

Sara Hashemi - Daily Correspondent

November 10, 2025 12:28 p.m.

The daily pills are designed for use among those whose high cholesterol is not reaching healthy targets despite taking other medications. Thana Prasongsin via Getty Images

An experimental pill designed by pharmaceutical company Merck can significantly cut cholesterol levels in adults, new research suggests.

The findings—presented at an American Heart Association meeting November 8—have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But they lay the foundation for the new drug, enlicitide, as a potential treatment for people whose cholesterol levels put them at risk for severe cardiovascular problems.

Key takeaway: High cholesterol

About 10 percent of adults and 7 percent of children and adolescents in the United States have high cholesterol, per the CDC. Since high cholesterol has no symptoms, many are unaware they have the condition.

Enlicitide inhibits a liver protein called PCSK9 to clear out LDL cholesterol, also known as “bad” cholesterol.

In a Phase 3 clinical trial, 2,912 adults with high LDL who either had or were at risk of a cardiovascular problem were randomly assigned to either take the new drug or a placebo over the course of 24 weeks. Most patients were already on statins, a class of drugs designed to lower cholesterol.

Those who took enlicitide during the study reduced their LDL levels by up to 60 percent, per a statement. The reductions were statistically significant and sustained for one year.

The pill was designed to help patients who aren’t reaching their cholesterol targets despite other currently available medicines.

“Many patients struggle to reach guideline-recommended cholesterol targets despite currently available therapies, leaving them at unnecessary risk of stroke and/or heart attack,” explains study lead Ann Marie Navar, a cardiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, in a statement.

Merck plans to apply for Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug early next year, Merck associate vice president of clinical research Puja Banka tells CNN’s Jacqueline Howard.

“We know that 70 percent of patients that are treated with lipid-lowering therapies still don’t reach their guideline-directed goals. So, the idea is really to show what we can achieve with enlicitide on top of statins,” Banka tells the outlet.

The pill will likely be marketed as an affordable, easier-to-administer alternative to expensive biweekly or monthly injections of monoclonal antibodies, which work similarly to the new pill.

But will it be affordable?

That’s the plan, Merck Research Laboratories president Dean Li tells the *New York Times’ *Gina Kolata. “The dream is to democratize PCSK9,” says Li. “This dream has the possibility of coming true.”

“If they price this so that people can afford it, it will make a huge difference,” David Maron, a preventive cardiologist at Stanford, tells the outlet. “This is a really important advance,” he adds.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 54.5 percent of the millions of Americans who could benefit from cholesterol medication currently take it.

The next phase of Merck’s study will involve over 14,500 participants, per the statement.

In a study also presented at last weekend’s meeting, evolocumab (brand name Repatha), a cholesterol-lowering injection made by Amgen, reduced major cardiovascular events by 25 percent in individuals who were at high risk of but had never experienced a heart attack or stroke. The drug also reduced the risk of a first heart attack by 36 percent in people with high cholesterol compared to those taking a placebo. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine November 8.

“Our findings suggest that long-term lowering with PCSK9 inhibitors can help to improve cardiovascular morbidity and potentially mortality over time,” says Erin A. Bohula, a cardiovascular medicine and critical care specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and lead author of the study, in a statement.

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