Purdue jumps ahead in pain drug race

With three significant development programs at work on a tamper-free alternative to the blockbuster OxyContin franchise, Purdue Pharma is bracing for an upcoming FDA panel review of its new pain therapy formulation. Pain Therapeutics, Alpharma and Elite Pharmaceuticals all hope to gain approvals for their own therapies, notes Pharmalot. But Purdue plans to beat them to it.

No one knows exactly what makes the new Purdue therapy tamper-proof, but there have been hints about a certain "rubbery" quality to the new drug. Just a year ago executives with Purdue pleaded guilty to charges that they had misled regulators on the addictive risks presented by OxyContin, which brought in a billion dollars in sales last year.

- check out the report in Pharmalot

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