Hi everyone - a bit of extra background on Pentosan. Pentosan...

Hi everyone - a bit of extra background on Pentosan.

Pentosan has been used in Europe as a folk remedy for aches and pains for centuries.

IMO there's no doubt whatsoever that this is an effective treatment for Osteoarthritis - it's still in fairly common use in much of Europe, including Germany, as a prescription drug for OA, and is available over the counter in Italy as a topical cream known as "Fibrase' (you can buy it online). In Australia it's also the drug of choice for vetinary use for OA in dogs and horses etc., because of its low toxicity and effectiveness. It used to be available in Australia as an OA treatment for humans, but as new OA drugs came onto the market a few decades ago, it fell out of favour, and the company producing it didn't bother to renew its registration/licencing. One difficulty with Pentosan is that it's poorly absorbed, and most of the oral dosage is excreted through the urine, and because it has a large molecule, it's also poorly absorbed through the skin. This is the reason that it's also effective when taken orally in relieving bladder pain (i.e it hangs around in the bladder). From my many discussions with GPs in Australia, they know very little about it, and are generally unwilling to prescribe it for OA, as it's not officially approved for that purpose. My wife has pretty bad OA in her hands, hence our long standing interest in Pentosan, but even her specialist didn't know anything about it. She did end up getting a prescription and had it made up as suppositories by a compounding pharmacist, but it was problematic, as there was no real control over the dosage or absorbtion etc., so it's not really a do-it-yourself proposition.

The big upside for both PAR, and patients, is that at present there is absolutely no treatment for OA, except a couple of fairly potent anti-cancer drugs, that don't always work, and have significant side effects, or cortisoids, or straight out pain killers. Pentosan therefore has IMO enormous potential as an very benign and low risk anti-inflamatory, and pain reducer. But the real upside, is the possibility that in addition to reducing inflamation, Pentosan seems also to help regenerate cartillage, and actually (or potentially) act as a 'cure' for OA. This would make it a real blockbuster, as the OA market is virtually unlimited.

The only risk to the downside IMO is how effective the patents are.

At my wife's request I bought a bunch of PAR at 29c, so pretty happy