Recent stories on bisphosphonate side effects might be signaling the advent of a new, superior drug, but will Halozyme’s rHuPH20 enzyme solve the problem of jaw necrosis?

Drug development companies operate within the overall consumer culture. We all want better drugs, better everything. Generic Fosamax (alendronate) now costs just $4 at Wal-Mart, Kroger and other retail pharmacies. What might make right now a better than usual time to get word out to the masses that Fosamax carries some dreadful, if quite rare, risks?

Seven percent of adults and 19 percent of children taking chemotherapy drugs in outpatient clinics or at home were given the wrong dose or experienced other mistakes involving their medications, according to a new study led by Kathleen E. Walsh, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and published in the January 1, 2009 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Edap TMS SA (EDAP) said it is currently conducting clinical investigations in France under an approved clinical trial combining the company’s Ablatherm-HIFU device with chemotherapy using docetaxel.

The study is a primary treatment therapy program for men suffering from clinically localized but aggressive high risk prostate cancer typically classified as stage T2c. The study began in late 2006 and the company expects to enroll up to 30 men, of which more than 10 have already been treated. More details — press release.

In submitting Provenge vaccine for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer for fast-tracked FDA approval despite aborting one clinical trial due to failure to meet the primary endpoint, Dendreon relied on meta-analysis of combined data from two parts of a phase III study, D9901. In fact, after the trials failed to meet their primary endpoint, time to progression, they were analysed twice over. Dr. Eric Small presented meta-analyses of impact on overall survival and prostate cancer specific survival and Dr. Daniel Petrylak presented a further analysis or suvival focused on a subset of patients who, when they progressed on Provenge, took Taxotere.

Danny Goldstein, a doctoral candidate in pharmacy in Israel, has developed a way of combining Taxol with Herceptin monoclonal antibody that overcomes the problem of the toxic emulsion normally required to make Taxol soluable. Goldstein’s nanoemulsion, used to create a Taxol-Herceptin combination and tested in mice, may allow superior, sustained delivery of this therapy to patients with advanced, mestatstic prostate cancer. Clinical trials will begin in about two years. Full story Nanotechnology Improves Chemotherapy-Antibody Combination, June 22.