You may remember that not so long ago I wrote about what looked like a drug discovery success story for pain: anti-NGF therapy for osteoarthritis. Well, it looks like that success was short-lived. Somehow I missed this over the Christmas break, but, the FDA has ended trials on anti-NGF therapies for osteoarthritis due to development of avascular necrosis in some patients. Nothing positive can come of avascular necrosis and the pulling of several trials would suggest that this is a drug class effect (or at least suspected to be). Anyway you cut it, this is bad news.
JUNIORPROF 
Ugh, that is such a bummer, for the process and especially for the patients in the trials who were hopeful and now have even more problems. It also shows just how complex this signaling is, and how hard it is to predict the full picture of the combinatorial biological effects of modulating it.
Ugh, that is such a bummer, not just for the field but also for the patients who were probably so hopeful. I guess it ends up being a good real-world example of just how complex this signaling biology is, and how combinatorially important NGF interactions must be in different physiological mechanisms. In cancer, you can get away with a lot more because the alternatives are so crappy, but all of these signaling disruptors come at a cost that hasn’t been adequately addressed in the signaling therapeutics “magic bullet” world.
Hey, I added your link: https://juniorprof.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/so-much-for-that to my article under the title So much for that | JUNIORPROF.
Hey, I added your link: https://juniorprof.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/so-much-for-that to my blog under the title So much for that | JUNIORPROF.