New cholesterol drugs fail safety tests

The hot new strategy of trying to prevent heart disease by raising good cholesterol had more setbacks Monday as new studies showed that experimental drugs didn’t work and also had safety problems.

The news follows Pfizer Inc.’s abandonment in December of an $800 million investment in torcetrapib, the leading contender in this class of drugs, because it raised the risk of heart attacks and deaths.

According to the new studies, the Pfizer drug seems uniquely risky, but other drugs have problems, too.

And even though they said the Pfizer drug raised HDL good cholesterol as intended, that made no difference in the odds of heart attacks or deaths, or key measures of cholesterol buildup in arteries.