Beware the pressure that mounts to come up with a super osteoarthritis drug that can modify the disease. That pressure has a lot to do with the fact that the planet’s seven largest osteoarthritis markets include about 75 million people. That’s another way of saying “blockbuster.” Trouble is, clinical trials are somewhat in a mess because the effects of new osteoarthritis drugs in clinical trials cannot be measured well via radiography. The so-called “end-points” of disease are therefore elusive. Now, that’s a major headache for Big Pharma.

So forget about radiography as a measurement stick. The industry is beginning to turn more of its attention to “biomarkers,” which presumably point to those elusive “end-points” which can supposedly provide telling information about whether the drugs can modify disease, and not simply treat pain. Well, good luck. To anyone savvy in matters of biomarkers, this technology can be extremely misleading, and, in some cases, can border on sheer fantasy.

Badly needed is a much better understanding of how the body’s highways and byways are involved in osteoarthritis. What you don’t want to do is have a new drug affect a joint and murder the rest of the body, or some vital part of it, such as the heart.

So why the red flag, aside from the more obvious reasons? One major problem is that advertising and promotional extravaganzas, these days often out of control since it seems no one is really watching, often give the “impression” that damage to joints is somehow being alleviated and health restored. All too often, insufficient information is provided to consumers about just what drugs for osteoarthritis can actually accomplish. Vagueness is both a gun pointed to your head and to Big Pharma’s bank account. Be careful that you don’t buy into some miracle-seeming foolishness of people in the commercials looking like they have become 20 again.

RFD Editor, Nicholas Regush