Familial hypercholesterolemia disorder in two generations simultaneously." "The use of total cholesterol alone may best discriminate between people with and without FH between the ages of 1 to 9 years." Screening of toddlers has been suggested, and results of a trial on 10,000 one-year-olds were published in 2016. Work was needed to find whether screening was cost-effective, and acceptable to families. FH is usually treated with statins. Statins act by inhibiting the enzyme hydroxymethylglutaryl CoA reductase (HMG-CoA-reductase) in the liver. In response, the liver produces more LDL receptors, which remove circulating LDL from the blood. Statins effectively lower cholesterol and LDL levels,
Specialty drugs in the United States but some—such as Pfizer and Amgen—are also developing biosimilars." In 2013 AfPA director David Charles published an article on specialty drugs in which he agreed with the findings of the Congressional Budget Office that spending on prescription medications "saves costs in other areas of healthcare spending". He observed that specialty drugs are so high priced that many patients do not fill prescriptions resulting in more serious health problems increasing. His article referred to specialty drugs such as "new cancer drugs specially formulated for patients with specific genetic markers". He explained the high cost of these "individualized medications based on diagnostic