OSTEOPOROSIS TREATMENT NOW APPROVED IN EUROPE & US FOR MEN

Male osteoporosis: Neglected and Under Treated Paris, August 17, 2006 – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week approved Actonel® 35mg (risedronate sodium tablets) for ‘treatment to increase bone mass in men with osteoporosis’. This follows the positive outcome in July 2006 of the European application for the additional indication of ‘treatment of osteoporosis in men at high risk of fracture’. National approvals will now follow in all twenty-five EU member states. This new indication now opens the door for more men with osteoporosis to benefit from Actonel treatment. ‘Male osteoporosis is neglected and under-treated,’ said Pierre Delmas, Professor of Medicine and Rheumatology at the Université Claude Bernard, in Lyon, France. ‘We have to ask ourselves why other conditions such as prostate cancer receive more attention than osteoporosis, when in reality men over 50 are at far greater risk of osteoporosis than they are of prostate cancer. We cannot accept the low levels of awareness that exist among patients and physicians because osteoporosis is such a devastating and debilitating disease for men.’