A new experimental cholesterol drug may outperform Pfizer Inc.’s blockbuster drug Lipitor according to initial studies. News of the new cholesterol medication comes just as Pfizer if facing hundreds of Lipitor lawsuits claiming the drug has caused a “national epidemic” of diabetes.

Drugs like Lipitor work to reduce the amount of LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, in the blood. According to new guidelines from the American Heart Association, as many as 75 percent of American adults may need statins. However, Lipitor and other statins may increase a person’s risk of developing type-2 diabetes, according to new research.

Evolocumab is an experimental drug in development by the biopharmaceutical company Amgen Inc. Research on evolocumab was recently published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, as well as the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. These studies found that under the conditions of their respective trials, evolocumab performed as well or better than Lipitor, and even reduced cholesterol levels in patients who were already taking Lipitor. Since evolocumab is not a statin, it may not carry the same risk of diabetes — but the drug is still experimental and at this point, such an assertion is purely conjectural.

The makers of Lipitor have faced legal action over the potential risk for diabetes. Lipitor lawsuits allege that the makers of Lipitor were aware of the risks associated with their drug, but actively concealed these risks in order to make a profit. One piece of evidence that has come up in the litigation against Lipitor’s manufacturers is that when the FDA mandated changes to the drug’s safety information to reflect diabetes concerns, the manufacturer added phrasing with medical jargon pertaining to “blood glucose levels” but did not actually use the word “diabetes.”