Pharma Blog Watch

Findings on Naproxen Safety (In the Pipeline)
In his blog, Derek Lowe writes about a trial published in the Public Library of Science showing that naproxen may be associated with cardiovascular risks. "OK, here's a stumper: are there any anti-inflammatory medications that don't have cardiovascular side effects?"

"This is an attempt to get some useful data out of a large Celebrex trial, looking to see if it had protective effects against Alzheimer's disease, and the whole thing was stopped early when all the COX-2 cardiovascular risks became an issue," he writes. And according to news reports, "Steve Nissen isn't convinced, and he's not a person who keeps his worries about drug safety all bottled up inside. His point is that the trial's statistical validity was ruined by the early halt, and that larger epidemiological studies don't back up its conclusion. I should note that he's now running a massive trial addressing this issue as well."