Pharma Blog Watch

New Diabetes Drug Approved (Pharma's Cutting Edge)
In his entry, blogger Fred Cohen discusses the FDA's approval of Merck's diabetes drug Januvia. "I'm already convinced that it is effective in relatively early diabetes and has the exciting potential to slow the progressive beta cell failure that is a hallmark of the disease," he writes.

"As far as safety, you'll recall that DPP-IV is a coactivator of T cells and is involved in metabolism of a number of peptides, so there is a theoretical safety issue with inhibiting it with a drug like Januvia," he continues. "That said, there's a very large potential patient base for this product in monotherapy and combination therapy, and I expect its uptake to be robust, better than the uptake of Avandia when it was first launched."