Pharma Companies Must be Allowed to Test Experimental Painkillers: FDA Panel

Pharmaceutical companies should be allowed to continue testing experimental painkiller drugs for osteoarthritis according to a recommendation of an advisory panel for the US Food and Drug Administration.

The panel recommended unanimously that the FDA should revoke its ban on companies such as Pfizer and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and allow them to continue their clinical trials of the drugs.

The health regulator had suspended the testing on the drugs back in 2010 after finding that they destroyed the joints with nearly 500 participants in the clinical trials requiring joints replacements.

The recommendation was welcomed by the pharmaceutical companies with Pfizer senior vice president, Steve Romano saying, "Physicians and patients are in need of options for difficult-to-treat pain conditions and the panel's vote today is an important step towards helping us more fully understand the benefit-risk profile of this important new class of medicines."

Source: Medindia