Research has found a new class of experimental cholesterol-lowering drugs can reduce, by half, the risk of heart attack and other major cardiovascular problems compared to usual care.

The U.S. government will decide this summer whether to allow two of these drugs on the market.

Doctors at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in San Diego, where the studies were presented, called the results ”encouraging,” but say larger, controlled trials are needed to fully understand the drugs.

They’re antibodies, given by injection, designed to target the protein that keeps LDL cholesterol in the bloodstream.

They work differently from statins – pills that block the liver’s production of bad cholesterol in the first place.