Prescription Drug News and Research

RSS

20 percent of sexual assaults drug-facilitated in Canadian study

More than 20% of sexual assaults in a sample of 882 victims were drug-facilitated sexual assaults, found a new study published in CMAJ.

2 Mar 2009

Treating drug-addicted doctors is good medicine

Doctors who become addicted to alcohol and other drugs can be treated successfully and returned to medical practice with the help of special programs that couple referral to treatment and monitoring with rapid responses to noncompliance, University of Florida researchers report.

24 Feb 2009

34 percent of all Medicare Part D enrollees select Medicare Advantage plans for 2009

More than nine million people, or 34 percent of all Medicare Part D enrollees, currently receive their prescription drug benefit through Medicare Advantage plans with prescription drug coverage (MA-PD plans), says new analysis by Avalere Health.

24 Feb 2009

Handheld device provides on-the-spot DNA analysis to test tolerance to prescription drugs

A handheld device to predict whether patients will respond adversely to medication is one step closer to the market, thanks to a new partnership.

18 Feb 2009

Most seniors have drug coverage, study shows

More than 90 percent of Americans age 65 and older have prescription drug coverage today, compared to 76 percent who were covered in 2004, according to a University of Michigan analysis.

10 Feb 2009

Medications control metabolism dominate spending for prescription meds

Medications that affect a person's metabolism by helping to lower cholesterol, control diabetes and control weight accounted for $38 billion of the $208.1 billion that American adults spent on medications in 2006, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

8 Feb 2009

Over a million U.S. cancer survivors foregoing vital treatments due to costs

More than a million cancer survivors living in the United States are foregoing what they believe is necessary medical care due to the cost, and Hispanics and African-Americans are twice as likely to go without services, according to data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research conference on the Science of Health Care Disparities.

5 Feb 2009

Seniors in Medicare's doughnut hole decrease use of meds

Beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Part D who reached a gap in health care coverage known as the "doughnut hole" were much less likely to use prescription drugs than those with an employer-based plan, according to a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health study.

3 Feb 2009

Discounted prescription drugs online becoming more attractive to many

Healthcare consumers, benefits managers, and even government officials are using the internet to buy unapproved prescription drugs illegally, according to a report to be published in the International Journal of Electronic Healthcare.

29 Jan 2009

FDA warns consumers not to take Venom HYPERDRIVE 3.0

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to take Venom HYPERDRIVE 3.0, a product sold as a dietary supplement and containing sibutramine.

29 Jan 2009

Healthcare among public's top priorities for economic stimulus

The public ranks action on health care highly as part of efforts to stem the impact of the economic recession and also views reforming health care as one of the top priorities for President-elect Obama and Congress, according to a new national survey conducted by researchers from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.

19 Jan 2009

New FDA guidelines for foods and feeds

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued three guidances designed to help ensure the safety of FDA-regulated products in the supply chain.

19 Jan 2009

Codexis announces licensing agreement with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries

Codexis, Inc. today announced a licensing agreement with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., to produce an important publicly-undisclosed generic product, using a proprietary Codexis biocatalyst.

7 Jan 2009

Bird flu becoming more resistant to antivirals

A new University of Colorado at Boulder study shows the resistance of the avian flu virus to a major class of antiviral drugs is increasing through positive evolutionary selection, with researchers documenting the trend in more than 30 percent of the samples tested.

7 Jan 2009

Seniors warned about mixing OTC and prescription drugs

According to researchers in the United States about 2.2 million seniors put themselves at high risk for drug interactions - they say many non-prescription medication, which are bought over-the-counter (OTC) can produce a harmful drug interactions.

29 Dec 2008

Policymakers, the media and the public should use 20 specific health indicators

Policymakers, the media, and the public should focus on 20 specific health indicators as "yardsticks" to measure the overall health and well-being of Americans, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine.

17 Dec 2008

FDA to review Barr Pharmaceutical's BLA for adenovirus type 4 and 7 live oral vaccines

Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for review Duramed Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s Adenovirus Types 4 and 7 Live Oral Vaccines Biologics License Application (BLA).

14 Dec 2008

Decline in teen marijuana use stalls - trends in cigarette and alcohol use continues to fall

There are signs that the ongoing decline in teen marijuana use in recent years has stalled; however the downward trend in cigarette and alcohol use continues, according to the 2008 Monitoring the Future (MTF) Survey. Results were announced today at a news conference.

11 Dec 2008

Electronic prescribing can boost drug cost savings

Electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) systems that allow doctors to select lower cost or generic medications can save $845,000 per 100,000 patients per year and possibly more system-wide, according to findings from a new study funded by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

10 Dec 2008