Toddlers Facing Heart Attacks Await Ruling on New Drugs From Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Like any patient at risk of a heart attack, Kennedi Thompson has been counseled by her doctor to eat a low-fat diet and take prescription statins to reduce her cholesterol. Unlike most others facing heart disease, Kennedi is 3 years old. She has a rare genetic disorder that has pushed her cholesterol level to four times that of a healthy adult. If left untreated, the disease -- called homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, or HoFH -- can spur a patient’s first heart attack or stroke in their teens, give them the arteries of an octogenarian by age 20, and kill by the time they’re 30.

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