A New Player in Pain Management

BioElectronics corporation markets a product outside the US called AcitPatch that would be used for managing mild to moderate pain (seemingly so, at least) and would function as a competitor to common medications like acetaminophen and ibuprofen. BioElectronics states that ActiPatch works by administering electromagnetic energy to an affected area (be it muscle, joint, etc), which helps reduce inflammation and swelling that causes pain. Now to the good stuff: the company recently released results of clinical trials showing that ActiPatch functioned well enough to claim superiority to acetaminophen. This is important because, as Seeking Alpha mentions, the market is getting ripe for the introduction of a new pain management product that does not have the safety concerns of NSAIDS or acetaminophen. With all the press emerging lately about those two medication classes, BioElectronics could very easily jump into a share of the vast pain market if a favorable FDA opinion is passed down. Even better, the stock is dirt cheap, so get a piece while you can.

Read more here at Seeking Alpha and from the BioElectronics website

Two other nuggets worth mentioning:

Novavax reported starting all important Pivotal trials of its H1N1 vaccine utilizing the companies VLP technology. If these trials are successful (and they should be, based on all the information available about VLP), then Novavax will be all set for implementing this vaccine platform to other types of shots, and its stock will likely reflect this. Stay tuned for more information as this trial gets under way and investors can chew on the results as they become available....

Novavax Launches Pivotal H1N1 Vaccine Trial

Xenoport is starting a phase 2b clinical trial of its own for a pro-drug of baclofen to treat partial responders to PPI therapy. I'm not sold on this idea quite yet, but the Xenoport seems to think the drug works. If this is the case, that would certainly add another level to the treatment of GERD other than the commonly used H2 blockers and PPIs. There is definitely a population of patients out there for whom PPIs do not work as well as they should, so if Xenoport's Arbaclofen Placarbil is moderately successful I think the company will benefit from decent sales numbers.

Xenoport launches Arbaclofen Placarbil trial


Read more about Xenoport's pipeline here