Big Pharma hard at work to get agony-inducing pain drug on the market

It was a horror show. One that sent our government into a panic.

Volunteers were given repeated doses of a new, experimental pain drug. It was supposed to be safe. It was supposed to melt away even the most agonizing joint pain.

But it may have melted away their joints instead.

It’s been just three years since the FDA frantically ordered a stop to some of the most disastrous pain medication trials in history… trials that left people with permanent joint damage and sent others scrambling into surgery for new knees, hips and shoulders.

But now this horror show is set for a sequel. And it looks like two of the most powerful drug companies will spend – and say – anything to unleash their risky pain drug on a new round of victims.

Out of joint

Tanezumab was going to be Pfizer’s next cash cow. It was part of a new class of anti-nerve growth factor (anti-NGF) drugs that block a key protein that helps deliver your body’s pain signals.

So when people with severe joint pain enrolled for tanezumab trials, they were desperately searching for relief.

The last thing they expected was that the drug would attack them.

It took just weeks. People taking tanezumab were being sent to surgery at an alarming rate for new hips, knees and shoulders. Their joints had literally worn away to nothing.

Researchers reported fractures and total joint collapse among those on the drug. The FDA said the condition looked more like “rapidly progressive arthritis” and the “death of bone tissue due to a lack of blood.”

Tanezumab unleashed so much suffering that the FDA put the brakes on all trials for anti-NGF drugs in 2012. A top scientist from Public Citizen testified that it would be unethical to ever resume human testing again.

But that was then.

Now, Pfizer is back in business, picking up right where it left off — along with a $2 billion investment from its new partner, Eli Lilly.

The FDA recently announced that it would allow tanezumab trials to resume after new “nonclinical” data (as in research that did not come from the previous, disastrous trials) showed tanezumab could be safe.

Two of the 10 largest drug companies in the world got together to lean on the FDA – and the rest of us never stood a chance.

And you won’t believe the fancy footwork they’re using to explain away the bone and joint damage. The researchers overseeing the trial said that the drug just worked too well. It took away so much pain that people weren’t “signaled” that they were overusing their fragile bones.

It’s an excuse that’s impossible to believe – especially because in one trial, a full third of tanezumab patients didn’t experience any clinically significant pain relief at all.

It’s a blunder drug, not a wonder drug.

But the FDA swallowed the explanation hook, line and sinker. Just a few more steps and it will be time to send tanezumab to the FDA for final approval.

Unfortunately, we know that people will be tricked into participating in new tanezumab trials, lured by the same empty promises that were made just three years ago. It’s doubtful they’ll be warned before they sign away their rights – and their joints – on the dotted line.

I’ll be following the tanezumab trials closely and will let you know what the brand name is as soon as it’s announced so you can be sure to avoid this drug at all costs.

Source:

“FDA removes the brakes on Pfizer and Lilly’s pain drug” Damian Garde, March 23, 2015, FierceBiotech, fiercebiotech.com