Cholesterol Drug From Trash Seen Preventing Heart Attack
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A way to boost good cholesterol and avert repeat heart attacks, which has eluded two of the world’s biggest drugmakers, may have been sitting in CSL Ltd.’s trash.
The Australian company realized that instead of discarding unused blood components left over from making hemophilia, burns and immune-system treatments, it could extract the beneficial cholesterol known as HDL and infuse it into patients. The idea is that HDL therapy may quell inflamed arteries and dissolve the life-threatening plaques that clog them, said Andrew Cuthbertson, CSL’s chief scientist.