Discontinued drugs 2011: endocrine and metabolic

Introduction: This perspective summarizes key compounds from the endocrine and metabolic area that were discontinued during the calendar year 2011. Metabolic diseases continue to comprise some of the most important, but underserved areas of medical management. Areas covered: The candidates covered in this summary were primarily being developed for treatment of type 2 and type 1 diabetes, obesity and inflammatory gastrointestinal disease. Candidates were identified from a search by informahealthcare including data available on TreasureTrove. Expert opinion: Discontinuation of programs during this period include older and newer projects but apparently all suffer from inability to provide timely evidence of clear benefit in clinical trials in the face of growing costs of development. There is a key need for targets that when modulated clearly affect the pathophysiology of the disease in way that is evident early in clinical trials.