Alendronate Sodium

BOSTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / June 25, 2024 / Radius Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Radius Health, Inc. ("Radius" or the "Company"), a specialty biopharmaceutical company focused on bone health and related areas, announced the appointment of Renata Sklodowska, M.D. as Senior Vice President, Medical Operations. Dr. Sklodowska joins Radius with over fifteen years of clinical development, regulatory, and medical affairs experience. She will report to Scott Briggs, Chief Executive Officer, and will oversee Medical Operations including Medical Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, and Pharmacovigilance (PV). "I am very pleased to welcome Renata to our Executive Leadership Team at Radius," said Scott. "Renata's extensive pharmaceutical industry experience, as well as her strong leadership track record in global medical and scientific affairs, will be extremely valuable as Radius continues to build its presence in bone health and related areas. Of particular importance will be Renata's strong patient-focus and ability to build alliances with medical, scientific, and patient communities to support our efforts with TYMLOS® and BINOSTO®." Dr. Sklodowska is an accomplished international pharmaceutical and biotech executive with Medical and Scientific Affairs expertise,as well as commercial experience. Her tenure includes more than fifteen years in the rare diseases area, including Endocrinology, with proven success preparing and supporting successful product launches as well as managing product portfolios. Dr. Sklodowska has an established history leading Medical Affairs activities for development stage and marketed drugs and a tested ability to create, train, and lead cross-functional teams to attain business objectives. Dr. Sklodowska has established global PV systems and provided oversight for the PV, drug safety, and risk management activities for numerous marketed products. As part of her responsibilities, she will also provide important scientific and medical expertise and guidance to support therapeutic area and product assessments behind business development efforts at Radius. "I look forward to joining the Radius team and applying my years of experience to build upon the company's successes to date, and to not only support TYMLOS® and BINOSTO®, but to also provide medical and strategic insight to explore opportunities to expand the Radius portfolio over time," stated Dr. Sklodowska. Prior to joining Radius, Dr. Sklodowska held several leadership positions in clinical development and medical affairs at biotech and global pharmaceutical companies, having most recently served as Vice President of Medical Affairs at F2G and Recordati Rare Diseases. Dr. Sklodowska received her Doctor of Medicine degree from the Medical University of Bialystok, Poland where she was also an attending physician. About Radius: Radius is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on addressing unmet medical needs in the areas of bone health and related areas. Radius' lead product, TYMLOS® (abaloparatide) injection, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in April 2017 for the treatment of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis at high risk for fracture, and in December 2022 to increase bone density in men with osteoporosis at high risk for fracture. Radius also recently announced an exclusive licensing and distribution agreement for the U.S. rights to BINOSTO® (alendronate sodium) effervescent tablet for oral solution, expanding the Company's presence in bone health. Contact: Sara Goldberg: Head of Communications Email: corporatecommunications@radiuspharm.com Phone: +1 (631) 379-8374 SOURCE: Radius Health, Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com

A new study suggests that adding common bone loss drugs to azoles can improve efficacy when treating fungal infections. Human skin, hair and nails are all vulnerable to fungal infections. While these infections are usually not serious, they're difficult to fully resolve and often recur after treatment -- sometimes for years. They're also often resistant to treatments, including a common class of antifungals called azoles. A study published this week in mSphere points to a new way to boost the efficacy of azoles in treating those infections -- combining them with commonly available drugs called bisphosphonates, usually used to treat osteoporosis. Previous work by the same research group has shown that adding bisphosphonates to azoles can effectively treat yeast infections from Candida and Cryptococcus species. The new study extends that finding to dermatophytes, which cause superficial infections. The study suggests that bisphosphonates could be repurposed to use with azole antifungals, which are relatively nontoxic, and that the combination could be readily tested in clinical studies. "There aren't many good antifungal drugs around, and the fungus will always develop resistance no matter how you treat them," said senior author Dee Carter, a mycologist at the University of New South Wales, Australia. "For what we're proposing, to use 2 drugs at the same time, that resistance is much less likely." Carter says she was only a little surprised to see the synergistic effect in dermatophytes. This research project began years ago, she says, when her group conducted a series of genomic analyses on the response of pathogenic yeasts to drug treatment. That study led them to a genetic pathway that is "upstream" of the pathway targeted by azoles, and is instead targeted by bisphosphonates. "That's often a good way to get drugs to work, is to target processes that are interlinked like that," Carter said. In the lab, Carter and her team tested 3 commonly available bisphosphonates (risedronate, alendronate and zoledronate) in combination with 3 commonly available azole antifungals (fluconazole, itraconazole and ketoconazole). They tested these against clinical isolates from a diverse range of dermatophyte species that cause superficial infections. The combination of zoledronate and ketoconazole proved particularly effective against 8 of the 9 tested species. It also prevented the development of resistance. Aidan Kane, mycologist, lead author of the study and a Ph.D. student in Carter's lab, used fluorescence microscopy and other methods to show that the drug combination worked by weakening the cell membrane enough that the fungus could not survive. Beyond the dermatophytes, the group also found that bisphosphonate-azole combinations could act against molds that cause invasive disease, suggesting another possible clinical application for the drugs. "You can use these combinations directly for superficial infections, like Candida or dermatophyte infections, and we're hoping that with modified forms of the drugs we can create something that will also work systematically," Carter said. "The next step is to continue testing bisphosphonate-azole combinations in animal models, and then test it in clinical trials."