Novel Pharmaceutical Strontium Malonate Influence on Calcium and Strontium Adsorption by Dog Femur and by Dog Teeth in a Four-Week Toxicity Study.

Strontium is known to have a positive effect on bone by concomitantly increasing bone formation while decreasing bone resorption thereby providing a sustained skeletal benefit. Strontium malonate is being developed as a novel orally available pharmaceutical for the treatment and prevention of osteoporosis. As part of this development the compound was administered in doses of 0 (placebo), 300, 1000 and 3000 mg/kg/day to beagle dogs for a period of 4 weeks. We measured the incorporation of strontium in bone, marrow and teeth in this study. Analysis by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry showed that administration of strontium malonate caused a significant increase in the strontium contents of all three kinds of tissue. Bone samples showed an approximately 80 fold increase in strontium content in the dogs treated with 300 mg/kg/day compared to placebo. The higher dose groups showed only marginally higher incorporation of strontium suggesting that saturation levels were reached with the lowest dose level. There was no gender difference in strontium incorporation. Correlations of strontium levels with Sr/Ca-ratio and other important biological parameters were investigated.