Medicare has saved $6 billion this year on its prescription drug program because of its shift to generic medicine for seniors. As a result, spending by Medicare on prescription drugs went down by 12 percent to $44 billion for the fiscal year which ended Sept. 30.

The move towards generics started in January 2006. At that time the Congressional Budget Office forecast by 2008 the entire prescription drug program would cost $74 billion. But official figures show the total cost was about one-third less or only $50 billion

Amgen's experimental bone drug denosumab reduced the risk of spinal fractures in women with osteoporosis by 68 percent in an important clinical trial raising hope to enter the drug market.

If the drug gets marketing approval, it could provide a new alternative to patients who can't take Fosamax or who don't respond to that class of drugs. Merck & Co.'s Fosamax has been the most popular, but it recently became available as a generic known as alendronate. However, a cheap generic version of Merck & Co.'s Fosamax will still be used as the leading initial therapy

Pfizer Inc.'s proposed osteoporosis drug could be useful for postmenopausal women and the benefits outweigh risks such as blood clots, an expert advisory panel said on Monday.

However, the drug, Fablyn (lasofoxifene tartrate) should be restricted to women at high risk of fracture or those who fail other treatments

A drug from Pfizer and Ligand Pharmaceuticals effectively treats osteoporosis but it may increase the chances of death from cancer or stroke, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) noted Thursday.

Pfizer's Fablyn is taken once daily as a tablet to prevent fractures in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. The drug lasofoxifene tartrate or Fablyn was rejected by the FDA in September 2005 as a medicine to prevent osteoporosis

A cheap drug developed to prevent brittle bone disease is touted as a breakthrough in the treatment of breast cancer, British and Finnish researchers say.

The drug, zoledronic acid, when used with a common chemotherapy drug, doxorubicin, stops tumors from growing and even keeps the cancer cells at bay after the termination of treatment, the Mail Online reported