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First Edition: August 10, 2010

In today's news, the House is back in town... though just for a day. Lawmakers will consider a state aid package that includes $16 billion in federal Medicaid assistance.

10 Aug 2010

Older Americans suffer from full-blown depression: Report

Maureen Duffy's memories of her grandmother are cloudy. Not because of time, but by a condition that cast a shadow over the woman Duffy had visited as a child.

10 Aug 2010

Oil rig workers access healthcare via telemedicine

Without hands-on access to doctors and hospitals, oil rig workers who become sick or injured increasingly rely on telemedicine "visits" with physicians and specialists on land, a trend explored in detail in an article published in Telemedicine and e-Health, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

10 Aug 2010

NIH begins human clinical testing for dengue virus vaccine

After more than a decade of development at the National Institutes of Health, a vaccine to prevent infection by the mosquito-borne dengue virus has begun human clinical testing. The vaccine was developed by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and is undergoing clinical study at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

10 Aug 2010

New scaffold supports growth, integration of stem cell-derived cardiac muscle cells

These days people usually don't die from a heart attack. But the damage to heart muscle is irreversible, and most patients eventually succumb to congestive heart failure, the most common cause of death in developed countries.Stem cells now offer hope for achieving what the body can't do: mending broken hearts. Engineers and physicians at the University of Washington have built a scaffold that supports the growth and integration of stem cell-derived cardiac muscle cells. A description of the scaffold, which supports the growth of cardiac cells in the lab and encourages blood vessel growth in living animals, is published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

10 Aug 2010

Hemodialysis with AVF depends on patient’s health insurance: Study

Kidney disease patients insured by some federally sponsored national health care organizations are more likely to undergo an important predialysis procedure than patients with other types of insurance, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The results may provide insights into ways to improve kidney-related care for patients before they go on dialysis.

10 Aug 2010

Scientists work towards creating a vaccine for Parkinson's disease

Nina Brown, 68, and millions of others with a debilitating neurological condition called Parkinson's disease are counting on researchers for a cure. At The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), protein chemists are working to develop a therapeutic vaccine.

10 Aug 2010

Vena cava blood clot filters may cause potential life-threatening complications: Study

Two specific types of vena cava filters, devices used to prevent blood clots from reaching the lungs, appear to have evidence of fracturing inside the body, with some fractured fragments traveling to the heart and causing potentially life-threatening complications, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the November 8 print issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

10 Aug 2010

Scientist develops nano-methods to destroy tumors with fewer side effects

Though a valuable weapon against cancerous tumors, radiation therapy often harms healthy tissue as it tries to kill malignant cells. Now, Prof. Israel Gannot of Tel Aviv University's Department of Biomedical Engineering is developing a new way to destroy tumors with fewer side effects and minimal damage to surrounding tissue.

10 Aug 2010

New familial link in juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia discovered

A UCSF-led team has discovered a direct link between an inherited genetic mutation, a set of developmental abnormalities and a rare form of childhood leukemia called juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia, or JMML. The study demonstrates a new familial link in JMML and has significant implications, the researchers say, for improving the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

9 Aug 2010

Morphine plus oxycodone IV combination exhibits improved analgesia, tolerability compared to IV morphine

QRxPharma Limited announced today positive results of its Phase 2 comparative proof-of-concept study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of its IV (intravenous) formulation of morphine plus oxycodone versus IV morphine alone for the treatment of moderate to severe post-operative pain in patients following hip replacement surgery. The main findings demonstrated that QRxPharma's formulation of MoxDuo IV resulted in fewer side effects and offered better pain relief than morphine alone.

9 Aug 2010

Dr Reddy’s launches first generic darbepoetin alfa

Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd. announced today the launch of Cresp® - the first generic darbepoetin alfa in the world, and the only darbepoetin alfa in India. Cresp® has been approved in India for the treatment of anemia due to chronic kidney disease and anemia due to chemotherapy.

9 Aug 2010

Sparton Medical Systems acquires Delphi Medical's contract manufacturing business assets

Sparton Corporation, a supplier of complex and reliable electronic and electro-mechanical products, sub-assemblies and related services to the highly regulated Medical, Defense & Security, and Aerospace markets announces that on August 6, 2010 its wholly owned subsidiary, Sparton Medical Systems Colorado, LLC, completed its previously announced acquisition of certain assets related to the contract manufacturing business of Delphi Medical Systems, LLC. The all-cash transaction is valued at approximately $8.0 million.

9 Aug 2010

BioVentrix announces First-in-Man milestone for PliCath heart failure system

BioVentrix, developer of the PliCath HF™ System for use in Epicardial Catheter-based Ventricular Reconstruction (ECVR), today announced achievement of its First-in-Man milestone, performed on a 52-year-old male heart failure patient in Krakow, Poland. The PliCath HF System is designed to treat heart failure (HF) by reducing the enlarged Left Ventricle (LV) through an anchoring system that is delivered across the cardiac chambers with the use of a catheter.

9 Aug 2010

AOBO to launch Yin Yang balancing medication Pai Du Qing Zhi Tablet

American Oriental Bioengineering, Inc., a pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving health through the development, manufacture and commercialization of a broad range of prescription and over the counter products, today announced that its Boke brand Pai Du Qing Zhi Tablet, a prescription medicine aimed at achieving the balance of Yin Yang by regulating metabolism, in order to cleanse the blood and detoxify, dispose of hemorrhoids, fight obesity and lower hyperlipemia, will be commercially launched in the third quarter of 2010.

9 Aug 2010

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals updates key progress in clinical pipeline

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: LXRX), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing breakthrough treatments for human disease, today updated the progress of its drug development programs and reported financial results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2010.

9 Aug 2010

Remote monitoring of chronic heart failure patients can reduce pressure on resources

Providing patients with chronic heart failure access to remote monitoring, for example by telephone or telemonitoring using wireless technology, reduces deaths and hospitalisations and may provide benefits on health care costs and quality of life. These are the conclusions of a new Cochrane Systematic Review by an international team of researchers.

9 Aug 2010

Apte wins Elkeles Prize for outstanding scientist in field of medicine

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) Professor Ron N. Apte has been awarded the 2010 Samuel and Paula Elkeles Prize for Outstanding Scientist in the Field of Medicine.

9 Aug 2010

Scientists induce nerve tissue regeneration in patients with spinal cord injury

Researchers for the first time have induced robust regeneration of nerve tissue connections in injured adult spinal cord sites that control voluntary movement. These findings provide hope that it may be possible to design therapies for paralysis and other impairments of motor function arising from spinal cord injury.

9 Aug 2010

Anti-viral drug addition to standard treatment regimen increases cure rate for hepatitis C

Adding a direct acting anti-viral drug to the standard treatment regimen for hepatitis C significantly increases the cure rate in the most difficult to treat patients, according to a research report published Monday in the online edition of the journal The Lancet.The research team, led by Paul Kwo, M.D., of Indiana University School of Medicine, reported that adding the drug nearly doubled the treatment's effectiveness when given for 48 weeks in one treatment arm of the study.

9 Aug 2010