Fentora and Cephalon Updates

The financial wheels are always in motion big pharmaceutical companies. For instance, take Cephalon, makers of Fentora.

Cephalon hopes that the opioid drug Fentora will soon be approved by the FDA for people with chronic pain. Fentora, a potentially addictive controlled substance has been used to treat breakthrough pain in cancer patients.

An advisory panel to the FDA will discuss whether to recommend Fentora as a drug for chronic pain. An approval is anticipated for later this year. Cephalon is confident since Fentora has been is not a new drug and has been on the market for awhile.

Other Cephalon news includes being sued by the FTC for delaying generic competition to its sleep disorder drug Provigil. Officially approved only for excess sleepiness associated with narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and shift work disorder, doctors use Provigil to treat everything from weight loss to ADHD to fatigue and depression.

See: http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/02/15/2008-02-15T204238Z_01_N14425149_RTRIDST_0_CEPHALON-ANALYSIS.html