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Life Sciences Discovery Fund announces nearly $600,000 in awards

The Life Sciences Discovery Fund (LSDF) today announced nearly $600,000 in awards to support commercial development of technologies to improve the diagnosis and management of major health conditions.

9 Feb 2011

Drugs against protective action of bacteria's antitoxin molecules

Bacteria often attack with toxins designed to hijack or even kill host cells. To avoid self-destruction, bacteria have ways of protecting themselves from their own toxins.

9 Feb 2011

Gates Foundation awards USF $5.45M for malaria research

The University of South Florida received $5.45 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The first grant is to create advanced devices that mimic the human liver to better study the life cycle of the malaria parasite - particularly the elusive liver stage where the disease may be most vulnerable to attack.

9 Feb 2011

Faster approval times for generic drugs may not drop the price for consumers

Faster approval times for generic drugs will get them into consumers' hands quicker, but may not make the price any better, a pricing and marketing researcher has found.

9 Feb 2011

Novel technique could speed up the development of peptide-based drugs against cancer

Researchers at the University at Buffalo have devised two new ways of "stapling" peptide helices to prevent these medically important molecules from losing their shape and degrading in the presence of enzymes.

9 Feb 2011

Study finds dutasteride not cost-effective in prevention of prostate cancer in men at elevated risk

The popular drug dutasteride may not be a cost-effective way to prevent prostate cancer in men who are at elevated risk of developing the disease, according to findings by a UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher.

9 Feb 2011

Momenta receives US patent for methods of developing glatiramer acetate drug

Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company specializing in the characterization and engineering of complex drugs, announced today that on February 8, 2011 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. Patent No. 7,884,187, entitled "Analysis of Amino Acid Copolymer Compositions."

9 Feb 2011

bcl3 gene limits lung injury during acute stress from illness, trauma, transplant

Lung injury is a common cause of death among patients with pneumonia, sepsis or trauma and in those who have had lung transplants. The damage often occurs suddenly and can cause life-threatening breathing problems and rapid lung failure.

9 Feb 2011

Vical announces issuance of US patent for HSV-2 vaccine

Vical Incorporated announced today the issuance of U.S. Patent No. 7,879,339, assigned to Vical and the University of Washington, covering DNA vaccines for herpes simplex virus type 2.

9 Feb 2011

Babies born to HIV-infected mothers have lower antibody levels against bacterial infections

Babies whose mothers have HIV, but who are not HIV-infected themselves, are born with lower levels of specific proteins in their blood called antibodies, which fight infection, compared with babies not exposed to HIV, a new study has found.

9 Feb 2011

Pharmacist-directed anticoagulation service improves quality of care for HIT patients

A Henry Ford Hospital study has found that a pharmacist-directed anticoagulation service improves the way medication is managed for patients with heparin-induced thrombocytopenia, a common but life-threatening thromboembolic disorder.

9 Feb 2011

ASBP concerned over FDA rejection of Contrave drug

The American Society of Bariatric Physicians is concerned that the FDA recently rejected the weight-loss drug Contrave, contradicting the FDA advisory panel's recommendation for approval. The rejection of Contrave marks the third weight-loss drug to be rejected by the FDA in the past six months.

8 Feb 2011

Reducing the cardiovascular disease gender gap

The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) is working with the National Cardiac Societies of its 53 member countries on a project to raise awareness of the disturbing gender gap in cardiovascular disease (CVD). In partnership with the European Heart Network (EHN) and the World Heart Federation (WHF), the ESC has developed the Women@Heart contest in which national societies submit ideas for public awareness campaigns aimed at informing both health professionals and women of the dangers of complacency about CVD.

8 Feb 2011

Avandia label revised as per FDA directive

Following the 2010 FDA directive, pharmaceutical manufacturer Glaxo-SmithKline announced this Monday that they have modified the label for diabetes drug rosiglitazone (Avandia). The new label restricts its use to patients already taking it or to those who have failed other antiglycemic drugs.

8 Feb 2011

Cancer can give important clues about nature and history of life

Despite decades of research and billions of dollars, cancer remains a major killer, with an uncanny ability to evade both the body's defenses and medical intervention. Now an Arizona State University scientist believes he has an explanation.

8 Feb 2011

Single molecule FRET techniques combined with wavelet transforms give new view of AMPA receptor

A digital signal processing technique long used by statisticians to analyze data is helping Houston scientists understand the roots of memory and learning, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and stroke.

8 Feb 2011

ScinoPharm to be Clinical Data's sole API supplier of vilazodone hydrochloride during Viibryd's launch

ScinoPharm, a leading active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and contract research and manufacturing (CRAM) service provider to the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, will provide commercial manufacturing service of vilazodone hydrochloride active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) for Clinical Data, Inc.'s Viibryd™, a new drug entity recently approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration.

8 Feb 2011

FDA warning leads to decrease in use of atypical antipsychotics for treatment of dementia

A warning issued by the Food and Drug Administration regarding the use of atypical antipsychotics for the treatment of dementia was associated with a significant decline in the use of these medications for treating dementia symptoms in elderly patients, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

8 Feb 2011

TREK1 activity offers a key target for fluoxetine and other antidepressant drugs

Using a unique and relatively simple cell-based fluorescent assay they developed, scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley have identified a means by which fluoxetine, the active ingredient in Prozac, suppresses the activity of the TREK1 potassium channel.

8 Feb 2011

Schizophrenia patients who consume antipsychotics appear to lose small amount of brain tissue

Patients with schizophrenia who take antipsychotic medications appear to lose a small but measurable amount of brain tissue over time, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

8 Feb 2011

Drugs News and Research

Life Sciences Discovery Fund announces nearly $600,000 in awards

Drugs against protective action of bacteria's antitoxin molecules

Gates Foundation awards USF $5.45M for malaria research

Faster approval times for generic drugs may not drop the price for consumers

Novel technique could speed up the development of peptide-based drugs against cancer

Study finds dutasteride not cost-effective in prevention of prostate cancer in men at elevated risk

Momenta receives US patent for methods of developing glatiramer acetate drug

bcl3 gene limits lung injury during acute stress from illness, trauma, transplant

Vical announces issuance of US patent for HSV-2 vaccine

Babies born to HIV-infected mothers have lower antibody levels against bacterial infections

Pharmacist-directed anticoagulation service improves quality of care for HIT patients

ASBP concerned over FDA rejection of Contrave drug

Reducing the cardiovascular disease gender gap

Avandia label revised as per FDA directive

Cancer can give important clues about nature and history of life

Single molecule FRET techniques combined with wavelet transforms give new view of AMPA receptor

ScinoPharm to be Clinical Data's sole API supplier of vilazodone hydrochloride during Viibryd's launch

FDA warning leads to decrease in use of atypical antipsychotics for treatment of dementia

TREK1 activity offers a key target for fluoxetine and other antidepressant drugs

Schizophrenia patients who consume antipsychotics appear to lose small amount of brain tissue

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

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