Akums Drugs receives approval for making cholesterol-lowering drug in India

India’s contract manufacturing pharmaceutical company Akums Drugs & Pharmaceuticals Ltd on Monday announced that it acquired the license to manufacture and commercialise Bempedoic acid-- a cholesterol-lowering drug.

Known as a novel, non-statin lipid-lowering treatment option that’s taken orally, Bempedoic acid is a new class of drug for treating high LDL-cholesterol conditions that’s indicative of cardiovascular diseases. Since Bempedoic acid is known to be low risk for patients with intolerability for statins, an important ingredient in most lipid-lowering drugs, it may prove beneficial to Indian population that has a high incidence of LDL and heart diseases.

“Akums Drugs will soon begin manufacturing this novel, first-in-India, lipid-lowering drug, which could be a boon to the several Indians living with heart conditions. As per statistics, there’re 112 million Indian adults suffer from high levels of LDL-cholesterol, out of this significantly high number of dyslipidaemic patients, who are already on statin-based treatments still continue to suffer from uncontrolled dyslipidaemia—for such patients, Bempedoic acid is a fresh ray of hope,” Founder, Promoter and Director, Akums Drugs & Pharmaceuticals, Shri Sandeep Jain said.

"Our research and development teams are working on various combinations of Bempedoic plus other molecules and soon these innovative products will also be introduced in India,” he added.

India carries an alarming heart disease debt, accounting for over 272 patients out of every lakh of people and with every fourth death in India caused by heart alignment. This condition haunts people at the prime of their life with drastic effects on the quality of their life and that of their families. Of these, some patients may also be intolerant to statins while others may already be prescribed the maximum dose they can tolerate in the course of their treatment. For such patients, Bempedoic acid will be a great alternative for doctors.

“This therapy is an important addition to the management of dyslipidaemia through effective disease management. Bempedoic acid has shown positive results in supporting therapy in patients unable to tolerate or unresponsive to statins, which accounts for about 5.4 million Indian patients,” said Jain.

“This puts the drug in a class of its own, with the ability to do something that was till now unthinkable. At Akums Drugs, we are glad to be a part of such path-breaking initiatives and hope that together with our customers in pharmaceuticals, we will capture significant market share and be the pioneers in introducing the complete range of Bempedoic acid,” he said.

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