The cholesterol shot you couldn't afford is now a pill

Merck's Lipfendra, the first oral PCSK9 inhibitor, has received FDA approval for patients with persistent high cholesterol despite statin use, delivering 55-59% LDL reductions in trials. The pill addresses a decade-old access problem: injectable PCSK9 inhibitors from Amgen and others have been priced and restricted so heavily that most patients never received them. If you're building patient access software or adherence tools for chronic disease, you've just gained 10 million potential users overnight: a new drug class that actually works just became affordable and easy to take. The problem that killed Amgen's injectable was distribution and cost friction - now Merck has solved it, and every hospital, payer, and primary care network needs to rebuild how they manage these patients.