Fourteen years ago, Amgen's Scott Simonet developed five mouse lines that were engineered to overproduce a protein that flows throughout the body. He discovered that while the mice looked normal to the eye, their bones were much thicker than normal, with significantly higher bone density, reports The Scientist. Over the years, other researchers would make their own discoveries regarding enhanced bone mineral density. And the work at Amgen eventually took a different pathway with the antibody therapy denosumab.
Amgen would mount 25 separate trials for denosumab covering some 20,000 patients. Those trials include two Phase III trials that have produced positive data indicating that denosumab is superior to Fosamax, a standard osteoporosis therapy. And because the therapy is reversible, it's considered safer than the protein approach.
- read the article from The Scientist