This post was authored by Payal Kohli, MD, fellow-in-training at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

This is now the second session I've been to today that has people standing in the back because none of the seats are open.  ACC.13 is definitely the place for cutting edge science!

As I write this, I am sitting in the “Novel Therapeutics for LDL Lowering” session.  Something tells me it isn't accidental that every seat is taken.  Lipid therapy right now is undergoing so much uncertainty and so many new trials are being conducted that there is so much to digest.

I think we are all waiting with baited breath to see what ATP4 will recommend.  In the meantime, we continue to be blown away by the promising results of these novel agents which have offered us some tempting options for treating those with familial hypercholesterolemia and those that are below their LDL targets.

Statins have been the blockbuster drug for so long and as we aim to keep pushing those LDL targets lower and lower, we are all walking down the road to discovery together to study new drugs such as PCSK9 inhibitors, CETP inhibitors, and ApoB-100 inhibitors.  But as we saw with HPS2-THRIVE and AIM-HIGH, it isn't as simple as we thought.

What do you think will be the next breakthrough in lipid lowering therapy?

A version of this article also ran on CardioExchange.

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