![\"Pill](\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/media\/pillbottle_C_20090623102910.jpg\")
Here’s a quick roundup of some news on experimental drugs:<\/p>\nHere’s a quick roundup of some news on experimental drugs:<\/p>\n
Two pills for multiple sclerosis<\/strong> fared well in clinical trials published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. One, Novartis’s fingolimod, was tested against a placebo<\/a> and against Avonex<\/a>, a form of interferon sold by Biogen Idec. The other, Merck KGaA’s cladribine, was tested against a placebo<\/a>. (The main findings of the studies had previously been reported.) <\/p>\n Current drugs for MS are given via injection or infusion, so the convenience of oral drugs would be an improvement for patients. But, as the WSJ notes<\/a>, the studies of fingolimod and cladribine suggested that the drugs may have serious side effects that will have to be weighed against the potential benefits.<\/p>\n A new approach to treating clostridium difficile<\/strong> showed promise. C. diff is a nasty bug that causes severe diarrhea, and tends to flourish in patients who have previously taken powerful antibiotics. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine<\/a> found C. diff patients who received combination of two experimental biotech drugs (monoclonal antibodies) in addition to antibiotics were less likely to have a C. diff relapse than patients who received antibiotics and a placebo. The Phase 2 study, which needs to be confirmed by a larger trial, was funded in part by Medarex, a Bristol-Myers Squibb subsidiary that was a developer of the drug. Merck bought rights<\/a> to the drug in a deal last year.<\/p>\n An HIV drug failed in late-stage trials<\/strong>, Merck said<\/a>. The drug, vicriviroc, is the same class as Pfizer’s Selzentry<\/a>. Dow Jones Newswires notes<\/a> that analysts’ expectations for sales of vicriviroc were modest, because Selzentry’s sales have been relatively low.<\/p>\n Photo: iStockphoto<\/em><\/p>\n Here’s a quick roundup of some news on experimental drugs: Two pills for multiple sclerosis fared well in clinical trials published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. One, Novartis’s fingolimod, was tested against a placebo and against Avonex, a form of interferon sold by Biogen Idec. The other, Merck KGaA’s cladribine, was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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