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Trade officials at WIPO fail to make progress on proposals to improve access to generic medicines

Trade officials met last week at the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization "to make progress on a proposal that would allow poor countries to provide inexpensive generic versions of lifesaving medications, rather than rely a single version of the same drugs under expensive patent monopolies," but the U.S. "remained steadfast in rejecting proposals aimed at lowering the prices of existing medicines in poor countries," the Huffington Post reports.

31 May 2012

Pfizer’s XALKORI now available in Canada

Pfizer Canada is pleased to announce that XALKORI (crizotinib) is now available in Canada. Recently approved with conditions by Health Canada, XALKORI is an oral monotherapy for patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

31 May 2012

Study shows how tafamidis drug works against amyloid disease

Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute and Pfizer Inc. have published a new study showing how a new drug called tafamidis (Vyndaqel) works.

31 May 2012

International conference: 'Preventing Overdiagnosis'

Overdiagnosis poses a significant threat to human health by labeling healthy people as sick and wasting resources on unnecessary care, warns Ray Moynihan, Senior Research Fellow at Bond University in Australia, in a feature published on bmj.com today.

31 May 2012

China Shenghuo first quarter total revenue increases 20.5% to $11.4M

China Shenghuo Pharmaceutical Holdings, Inc., today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2012.

31 May 2012

AssureRx closes $12.5M Series C financing

AssureRx Health, Inc. today announced the closing of a $12.5 million Series C financing. The personalized medicine company, which provides clinically-relevant information to help physicians select the right drug for individual neuropsychiatric patients, will use the funds to increase commercial activities for its two flagship pharmacogenomic products, GeneSightRx Psychotropic and GeneSightRx® ADHD, as well as next generation product development activities.

31 May 2012

GPs vote for strike

GPs have voted in support of industrial action in the ballot over pensions, the BMA has announced.

30 May 2012

Bedside tool improves prognostication after cardiac arrest

A bedside prediction tool could estimate the probability of favorable neurologic survival in successfully resuscitated patients after in-hospital cardiac arrest, say researchers in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

30 May 2012

Industrial action to be taken by doctors for the first time in almost 40 years

Doctors will take industrial action for the first time in almost 40 years over major changes to the NHS pension scheme, the BMA confirmed today. The first day of action will take place on 21 June 2012 and will see doctors providing all urgent and emergency care, but postponing non-urgent cases.

30 May 2012

Dehydration: how much should we drink per day?

As the northern hemisphere approaches the summer months, many of us begin to think about drinking more to prevent dehydration. But exactly how much should we be drinking a day? Does the amount vary depending on what we are drinking? And what happens if we don’t drink enough fluid?

30 May 2012

Specialty doctor groups ask feds to delay managed care move for dual eligibles

Several organizations have asked the federal government to slow down implementation of a health law provision that would move people eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid into managed care.

30 May 2012

Law aims to illuminate financial links between doctors and pharmaceutical companies

A Colorado School of Public Health researcher has found that laws designed to illuminate financial links between doctors and pharmaceutical companies have little or no effect on what drugs physicians prescribe.

30 May 2012

Researchers identify mechanism key in drug allergy

Adverse drug reactions are a major issue that cause harm, are costly and restrict treatment options for patients and the development of new drugs. A groundbreaking finding by researchers from the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology could lead to a new way to dramatically improve drug safety by identifying drugs at risk to cause potentially fatal genetic-linked hypersensitivity reactions before their use in man.

30 May 2012

For many prostate cancer patients, new guidance is confusing

The recommendation that fewer men get screened for the disease goes against what many people believe should be appropriate, NPR reports.

30 May 2012

Genetic analysis on Korean mummy reveals unique HBV genotype C2 sequence

The discovery of a mummified Korean child with relatively preserved organs enabled an Israeli-South Korean scientific team to conduct a genetic analysis on a liver biopsy which revealed a unique hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotype C2 sequence common in Southeast Asia.

30 May 2012

Doctors may predict girls at increased risk of eating disorders based on food choices

Doctors may be able to predict which girls are at risk of developing eating disorders based on the food choices they make when they are younger, according to a new study by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

30 May 2012

QCMG establishes Illumina technology as core sequencing platform

Illumina today announced that the Queensland Centre for Medical Genomics (QCMG), home of Australia's International Cancer Genomics Consortium program, has established Illumina technology as its core sequencing platform in an expanded facility.

30 May 2012

IU scientists focus on health issues and behaviors specific to bisexual men and women

Bisexuality, often stigmatized, typically has been lumped with homosexuality in previous public health research. But when Indiana University scientists recently focused on the health issues and behaviors specific to behaviorally bisexual men and women, they found tremendous variety, and that commonly used labels, such as heterosexual and homosexual, can sometimes do more harm than good.

30 May 2012

Overdiagnosis: harming the healthy

Overdiagnosis poses a significant threat to human health by labelling healthy people as sick and wasting resources on unnecessary care, warns Ray Moynihan, Senior Research Fellow at Bond University in Australia, in a feature published on bmj.com today.

30 May 2012

Patients with history of skin infection more likely to develop surgical site infections

Johns Hopkins scientists have engineered cells that behave like AND and OR Boolean logic gates, producing an output based on one or more unique inputs. This feat, published in the May issue of Nature Chemical Biology, could eventually help researchers create computers that use cells as tiny circuits.

30 May 2012