Zelos: More bone, less risk

A young company looking to go head to head with a marketed pharma drug better have an appealing selling proposition. Zelos Therapeutics Inc. believes it has just that in its parathyroid hormone analog, which it says forms new bone without increasing the bone resorption associated with similar products. The company's injectable Ostabolin-C is in Phase II testing for osteoporosis.

Ostabolin-C was discovered by a research group at Canada's National Research Council that was studying cell signaling and bone metabolism...