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Are you and your primary care doc ready to talk about your DNA?

If you have a genetic mutation that increases your risk for a treatable medical condition, would you want to know? For many people the answer is yes. But such information is not commonly part of routine primary care.

22 May 2018

Middlemen who save $$ on medicines — but maybe not for you

Guess who's back grabbing headlines? Pharmacy benefit managers — those companies that serve as middlemen in the prescription drug pipeline.

21 May 2018

Vermont legislators pass a drug importation law. So what?

This week, Vermont passed a first-in-the-nation law that would facilitate the state's importation of prescription drugs wholesale from Canada. It represents the state's effort to tackle head-on the issue of constantly climbing drug prices.

18 May 2018

New consensus recommendations to help clinicians manage GSM in breast cancer patients

Although the genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM) is more prevalent in survivors of breast cancer than in other menopausal women, it is commonly undiagnosed and untreated.

18 May 2018

Rocket Pharma partners with Stanford University to advance FA and PKD gene therapy research

Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading U.S.-based multi-platform gene therapy company, and the Stanford University School of Medicine today announced a strategic collaboration to support the advancement of Fanconi Anemia and Pyruvate Kinase Deficiency gene therapy research.

17 May 2018

Reversing an overdose isn’t complicated, but getting the antidote can be

A few months ago, Kourtnaye Sturgeon helped save someone’s life. She was driving in downtown Indianapolis when she saw people gathered around a car on the side of the road. Sturgeon pulled over, and a man told her there was nothing she could do: Two men had overdosed on opioids and appeared to be dead.

16 May 2018

Opioid pharmaceutical marketing influences physicians' opioid prescribing rates

A new study shows the significant impact that even a meal or two paid for by a pharmaceutical company can have on prescribing rates, despite a national decline of opioid prescribing rates.

15 May 2018

Study: Gadolinium deposition in brain not associated with dosage

Investigators at Children's Hospital Los Angeles have determined that in children receiving gadolinium as a contrast agent to enhance MRI examinations, signal changes attributed solely to deposition of this material in the brain are not dependent on the amount of gadolinium administered but rather these changes are seen in association with other factors such as the presence of brain tumors and treatment using brain irradiation. Results of the study were just published in the journal, Radiology.

15 May 2018

Scientists find overlap between causes of RA and Huntington’s disease

Using new analytic tools, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have decoded the epigenetic landscape for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a common autoimmune disease that affects more than 1.3 million Americans.

15 May 2018

Phase 1/2 study evaluates safety, tolerability of multiple-ascending doses of ARO-HBV in hepatitis B patients

Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc. today announced that it has dosed the first 3 hepatitis B virus patients in the multiple-ascending dose portion of its ongoing Phase 1/2 study of ARO-HBV, the company's third generation subcutaneously administered RNA interference therapeutic being developed as a potentially curative therapy for patients with chronic HBV infection.

14 May 2018

Trump vows (again) to lower drug prices but skeptics doubt much will change

President Donald Trump, armed with the expertise of staff seasoned in the ways of the drug industry, unveiled his blueprint to address sky-high drug prices Friday afternoon, promising that increasing industry competition will help Americans save at the pharmacy counter.

11 May 2018

Why the drugmaker that paid Trump’s lawyer $1.2 million is so worried

President Donald Trump didn't mention Novartis or other drugmakers by name last year when he said the industry is "getting away with murder."

11 May 2018

Podcast: KHN’s ‘What the Health?’ The politics of rising premiums and menu labeling

Proposed insurance premium increases unveiled in Maryland and Virginia officially marked the start of finger-pointing on Capitol Hill this week, as Democrats and Republicans blamed each other for the dysfunction of the individual insurance market under the Affordable Care Act.

10 May 2018

Penn engineers develop faster way to make drug microparticles

Pharmaceuticals owe their effects mostly to their chemical composition, but the packaging of these drugs into specific physical formulations also need to be done to exact specifications.

9 May 2018

STEM workshop highlights the need to impart advanced training and education on clean, sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing

DSM Sinochem Pharmaceuticals, global leader in sustainable antibiotics, in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi organized a workshop today on 'Sustainability through Excellence in Manufacturing (STEM)' to impart advanced training and education to industry stakeholders on high quality, clean and sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing.

9 May 2018

Scientists discover how potential new drug targets spinal muscular atrophy

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a genetic disease that can leave infants with weak muscles and trouble breathing. Many with the disease die before age two. To help these patients, doctors need therapies that target the genetic mutation and stop its progression.

8 May 2018

Alnylam achieves delivery of novel siRNAs conjugates to the central nervous system

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that the Company has achieved delivery of novel small interfering RNA conjugates to the central nervous system and is planning to advance a pipeline of investigational RNAi therapeutics into clinical development.

8 May 2018

Researchers harness the precision of CRISPR to knock out single genes in yeast

Researchers have used CRISPR-Cas9 to develop a technology that can precisely target any gene in the yeast species Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

8 May 2018

Use of psychiatric drugs soars in California jails

The number of jail inmates in California taking psychotropic drugs has jumped about 25 percent in five years, and they now account for about a fifth of the county jail population across the state, according to a new analysis of state data.

8 May 2018

FDA grants approval for two drugs administered together to treat aggressive form of thyroid cancer

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Tafinlar (dabrafenib) and Mekinist (trametinib), administered together, for the treatment of anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) that cannot be removed by surgery or has spread to other parts of the body (metastatic), and has a type of abnormal gene, BRAF V600E (BRAF V600E mutation-positive).

8 May 2018