"The promising diabetes drug Galvus recently got turned back by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "About 5,500 patients had
taken the medicine in clinical trials at that point, but the
problem apparently wasn't with them. The agency was worried
because some monkeys who were given high doses of Galvus
developed skin lesions. Humans who took normal amounts of the
drug for as long as two years didn't get the sores, but the FDA
refused to approve the drug until it saw more testing in people
who might be at higher risk. About that drug the article later
tells us, "In the case of the new Novartis drug Galvus, James
Shannon, the company's global head of pharmaceutical
development, told investors that Novartis researchers 'do not
understand -- do not know -- the mechanism of the skin findings'
in monkeys. They do know that 'humans appear to react to Galvus
in a very different way.'" The article says that the FDA's
decision not to approve the drug until it saw more testing in
people, "spotlighted an important unr