POZEN Poses To Make New Migraine Drug
Calm down — it will take some years before the drug can be available to the general public, if further tests go well. The results of the first human guinea pig short-term study done by POZEN, Inc (in cooperation with Giant Pharma Giant GlaxoSmithKline (nee: SmithKline Beecham)) were sent to the FDA. The exact results have not been made availble to the general public.
This time, the drug in question has been given the tentative brand name of Treximet (nee: Trexima), which is a combination of sumatriptan (85 mg) and naxoproxim sodium (500 mg). The plan is to give this medicine in tablet form.
So?
Apparantly, this short-term test on humans was done at the request of the FDA over the findings of ANOTHER test done last year. (The plot gets more convoluted than a soap opera’s, doesn’t it?)
That test showed the result of in vitro studies done on Chinese Hamster ovaries (commonly called CHO). (I’m not making this up — I sware! This is acutally a common process to test on animal cells in test tubes or other cases to see what happens. This is hoped to eliminate the need for any entire hamster or other animal to be used in medical research. Don’t get me started on animals in medical research.) The FDA had concerns about “genotoxic potential” of Treximet. In other words, that means the FDA was concerned about damage to a patient’s DNA by taking the drug. Pretty serious stuff.
In the current test, people’s blood lymphocytes were examined after a week of use. Apparantly, no change happened to them. So now, perhaps, the ball will keep rolling for this new acture migraine drug to be released hopefully before 2009.
Why 2009? Well, as Migraine Blog reports, the patent for Imitrex (another migraine drug) expires and so generic Imitrex is projected to “flood the market”, making no one really eager to try a new costlier prescription acute migraine drug. Real compassionate folks in Giant Pharma, eh?
In other words…same old, same old. I’m looking forward to another Topamax study after all of that.

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