Targeted Plexxikon drug helps ease pain from rare joint disease

An experimental cancer drug being developed by Plexxikon, a unit of Daiichi Sankyo, appears to ease pain and swelling in patients with a rare joint disease caused by a genetic mutation, researchers said on Wednesday. Plexxikon’s drug, PLX3397, is a new cancer drug that acts on this same pathway, blocking the abnormality that drives PVNS. Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York tested the drug in people with this rare disease, which affects about 600 people in the United States.