Five years after the high-profile withdrawal of Merck & Co's arthritis drug Vioxx from the market, French pharmaceutical company NicOx is trying to wow the regulators with its first-in-class anti-inflammatory drug naproxcinod. The Sophia Antipolis-based firm has submitted a new drug application to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its cyclooxygenase (Cox)-inhibiting nitric oxide-donating osteoarthritis drug, which it hopes will be the first anti-inflammatory to be given the regulatory thumbs up since the Vioxx withdrawal. Traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) such as aspirin work by blocking both the Cox-1 and Cox-2 enzymes, and for a time it was believed that while...