One could be good, one not so good

Novartis announced its partnership with Heptares to develop and market the small biotech's G protein coupled receptor targeting products. This platform has lots of potential to be used to treat many different conditions, but it could be some time before drug candidates are ready for human trials. Novartis must see a good deal of promise in Heptares, but I wouldn't bite quite yet...could be a shot in the dark, but on the other hand what isn't a shot in the dark with biotech speculating?


Read more for yourself about Heptares here and the news release here


On the other side, Depomed is trying to get a slow release form of gabapentin approved to treat hot flashes in postmenopausal woman. While an extended release version of this drug is a decent idea given the history of nasty side effects associated with high doses, it doesn't look like Depomed got all the results for which it was hoping in its phase 3 BREEZE study. I'm not a big fan of using gabapentin for all these new indications (a popular trend apparently in pharma) because of the safety profile, so even if Depomed met several of its endpoints in the this study I won't be sold on the whole product.

Even if this product turns out to be effective and safe enough to warrant an approval at some point, I can't see women being willing to test it out given the high doses involved and the history of gabapentin's side effects.

Check out the Depomed release here