Drugs News and Research

RSS

FDA opens two-day hearing to examine safety of diabetes drug Avandia

The Fiscal Times: "There will be more at stake than just one drug's future when the Food and Drug Administration opens a two-day hearing Tuesday on the safety of the diabetes drug Avandia. The 30-member panel of outside experts will also be rendering judgment on research methods that are frequently used to compare effectiveness and are slated to become a pillar of the nation's drug safety monitoring system.

14 Jul 2010

LSUHSC Professor awarded $2.1M grant to determine role of PCP

Dr. Jay Kolls, Professor and Chairman of Genetics at the LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Medicine, has been awarded a $2.1 million grant over five years by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health to determine the role and identify which T-helper cells fight the opportunistic infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, which can be a complication of HIV/AIDS.

14 Jul 2010

Administration to unveil first national HIV/AIDS strategy today

The White House will unveil the first formal national HIV/AIDS strategy on Tuesday, a plan that aims to reduce the number of new cases by 25 percent in the next five years, officials said. Noting that the number of new infections in the United States has been static -- and that the number of people living with HIV is growing -- the new policy would direct more resources toward African Americans and gay and bisexual men. Latinos and substance abusers should also be a priority, the report says.

14 Jul 2010

Opinions: Haitian rebuilding; Nuclear state vaccine initiatives; HIV rights abuses in China; HIV vaccine

The "paltry scale of the Pentagon's reconstruction endeavor [in Haiti] -- 1.6 million people displaced and the American military is contributing a few classrooms? -- is emblematic of the international response," columnist Dana Milbank writes in a Washington Post opinion piece.

14 Jul 2010

FDA to decide on Avandia’s fate Wednesday

Avandia, a drug used as a treatment for type 2 diabetes was approved for use in 1999. However controversies have surrounded it since 2007 when a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Steven E. Nissen published a study in the acclaimed New England Journal of Medicine that concluded that the drug significantly increased the risk for heart problems like heart attacks, heart failure and deaths.

13 Jul 2010

Fredericksburg Oncology invites participants for new metastatic melanoma clinical trial

Fredericksburg Oncology is now accepting patients for a new clinical trial supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to evaluate treatment for metastatic (advanced stage) melanoma. The current trial, designed at the Mayo Clinic, combines chemotherapy with targeted molecular agents in an effort to improve control of this difficult disease, reports Dr. Frederick C. Tucker, Jr., who heads this practice.

13 Jul 2010

Protalix BioTherapeutics' taliglucerase alfa for Gaucher disease granted French ATU

Protalix BioTherapeutics, Inc. announced today that the French regulatory authority has granted an Autorisation Temporaire d'Utilisation (ATU), or Temporary Authorization for Use, for taliglucerase alfa for the treatment of Gaucher disease. An ATU is the regulatory mechanism used by the French Health Products and Safety Agency to make non-approved drugs available to patients in France when a genuine public health need exists.

13 Jul 2010

Former presidents endorse the Vienna Declaration

Former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), Ernesto Zedillo (M-xico) and C-sar Gaviria (Colombia) today announced their endorsement of the Vienna Declaration, the official declaration of the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010, www.aids2010.org) taking place from 18 to 23 July 2010.

13 Jul 2010

IAS, NIDA announce recipients of second annual joint research fellowships

The International AIDS Society (IAS) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) today announced the recipients of their second annual joint research fellowships. Recipients of the prestigious awards will receive US$75,000 each to advance the scientific understanding of the linkage between illicit drug use and HIV, while fostering multinational research.

13 Jul 2010

Research finding could yield new ideas for treating symptoms of motor neurone disease

Scientists in Aberdeen have discovered a mechanism that muscles use to regulate the nerves which control them. They believe their finding could yield new ideas for treating symptoms of motor neurone disease - a progressive and incurable neurodegenerative condition that leads to muscle weakness and wasting - and other neuromuscular conditions.

13 Jul 2010

Protein acetylation not rare in bacteria

Lowly bacteria are turning out to be much more complex than previously thought.

13 Jul 2010

LLS awards two new grants through prestigious Marshall A. Lichtman SCOR research initiative

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society today announced it has awarded two new grants through its prestigious Marshall A. Lichtman Specialized Center of Research research initiative, bringing the program's total funding to $210.5 million since its inception in 2000.

13 Jul 2010

Roche obtains global co-exclusive license for PI3K biomarker from QIAGEN

Roche announced today that the company has obtained a worldwide co-exclusive license for the biomarker PI3K (phosphoinositide 3-kinase) from QIAGEN to develop real-time and endpoint PCR diagnostic assays. Johns Hopkins University owns the patent for the PI3K biomarker and has previously granted an exclusive license to QIAGEN's wholly owned subsidiary DxS, now QIAGEN Manchester.

From QIAGEN Manchester Limited 13 Jul 2010

New study on impact of bortezomib on mantle cell lymphoma

A new study by researchers from the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center sheds light on how bortezomib (VELCADE-), the first in a new class of cancer drugs known as proteasome inhibitors, works in mantle cell lymphoma. The study also provides preliminary evidence for which patients might benefit most from bortezomib.

13 Jul 2010

Encap Drug Delivery granted patents in US, Europe for DuoCap capsule delivery system

Encap Drug Delivery, a leading provider of development and manufacturing services to the pharmaceutical industry, has received confirmation that their DuoCap™, capsule delivery system has been granted patents for US and Europe.

13 Jul 2010

Stem cell transplantation from healthy donor helps cure aggressive form of CLL

The transplantation of stem cells from a healthy donor (allogeneic) offers the chance of cure for patients with an aggressive form of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), irrespective of genetic prognostic factors and the prior course of the disease. The German CLL Study Group proved this in a multicentric clinical phase II study led by Professor Dr. Peter Dreger, senior consultant and head of the division of stem cell transplantation at the Department of Internal Medicine V at Heidelberg University Hospital.

13 Jul 2010

AHF to criticize President Obama's NHAS in a press conference

AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the largest global AIDS organization, will host a press conference Tuesday, July 13th at 3:30 PM Eastern, to criticize President Obama's National HIV/AIDS Strategy which is being formally released in a White House press conference at 2pm Tuesday. The strategy, 15 months in the making, was crafted as the nation's AIDS Drug Assistance Program the federal and state funded, state run network of programs that supply lifesaving AIDS drugs to low-income Americans in need, collapsed.

13 Jul 2010

CSHL scientists reverse symptoms of Type III SMA using ASOs

The devastating, currently incurable motor-neuron disease spinal muscular atrophy might soon be treated with tiny, chemically modified pieces of RNA called antisense oligonucleotides.

13 Jul 2010

Researchers identify genetic variant associated with increased risk of AAA

Geisinger researchers are part of an international team that has identified a genetic variant more common in individuals with abdominal aortic aneurysms. This is one of the largest studies ever into the genetics of AAA. The results of the work will appear in this week's online edition of Nature Genetics.

13 Jul 2010

Kid cholesterol

According to a new study published in the 12th July issue of the journal Pediatrics, one third of kids have blood cholesterol on the higher side and these levels might be overlooked with the current screening recommendations.

13 Jul 2010