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Patients more satisfied if they have more contact with pharmacist

Getting hospital-based pharmacists out from "behind the counter" to work directly with inpatients and health care teams reduces medication errors and problems, according to a University of Iowa and Department of Veterans Affairs review of previously published studies.

23 May 2006

Level of selenium-containing proteins in the body instrumental in preventing cancer

Selenium, an essential dietary mineral that can act as an antioxidant when incorporated into proteins, has been shown in many studies to reduce the incidence of cancers -- notably lung, colorectal and prostate.

23 May 2006

New drug for Parkinson's gets FDA approval

The Food and Health Administration in the U.S. has granted approval for a new drug to treat patients with Parkinson's disease.

21 May 2006

FDA approves Azilect for the treatment of Parkinson's

The Food and Drug Administration today approved Azilect (rasagiline), a new molecular entity, for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

17 May 2006

OK from the FDA for synthetic marijuana drug

Despite saying quite recently that it does not support the use of marijuana for medical purposes, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given marketing approval for a drug which is a synthetic version of the active ingredient in marijuana.

17 May 2006

Low affinity analogs of thyrotropin-releasing hormone are super-agonists

Chemical knockoffs resembling a key thyroid-related hormone are, in certain cases, more effective than the real thing at activating the target receptor.

16 May 2006

Thanks to WHO effective combo malaria therapy will be de-rigueur

Following pressure from the World Health Organization (WHO), 13 pharmaceutical companies have agreed to comply with their recommendation that single-drug artemisinin medicines for the oral treatment of malaria need to be phased out.

15 May 2006

Majority of sexual assaults drug facilitated

Almost 62 percent of sexual assaults were found to be drug facilitated, and almost 5 percent of the victims were given classic 'date-rape' drugs, according to a new study at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

11 May 2006

Lilly to extend patient assistance programs for Medicare patients

Eli Lilly and Company has announced that it will be extending its existing patient assistance program, LillyAnswers, through the end of this year to qualifying patients currently participating in the program, to help bridge the gap in coverage for people who need Lilly medicines, but are not yet enrolled in Medicare Part D.

11 May 2006

Neuren granted US patent for NNZ-2566

Neuren Pharmaceuticals has announced that its patent application entitled "GPE Analogs and Peptidomimetics" (PCT/US02/16361) has been issued in the United States (US Patent No: 7,041,314) on 9 May 2006.

10 May 2006

Promising chemo, therapeutic viruses, cutting-edge surgery debut at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center

Brain tumor specialists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center are poised on the brink of a new era.

10 May 2006

Doctors widely prescribe drugs without adequate scrutiny

In choosing which drugs to prescribe, doctors often select medications for patients despite a lack of conclusive medical evidence of their effects and safety, according to a new study led by a researcher at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

9 May 2006

New approaches to genetic disease, based on cells' own ability to correct themselves

New approaches to genetic disease, based on cells' own ability to correct themselves, will be outlined today at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

8 May 2006

New technology to identify and engineer protease substrates

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have developed a new biotechnology that enables scientists to identify and engineer protease substrates, giving them the means of crafting pharmaceuticals to outsmart disease.

3 May 2006

Melatonin, taken orally can improve ability to sleep

Researchers from the Divisions of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School have found in a double-blind placebo-controlled clinical study, that melatonin, taken orally during non-typical sleep times, significantly improves an individual's ability to sleep.

3 May 2006

DARPA grant supports research toward realizing tissue regeneration

While U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are surviving injuries that in previous conflicts likely would have been fatal, the number of wounded with major tissue loss has never before been so high.

3 May 2006

DNA taxi

Despite few successes to date, gene therapy is a highly promising approach for medical therapy in the future.

1 May 2006

A contraceptive pill for men!

According to a Sydney scientist a hormone-based contraceptive for men has the ability to reverse its effect just four months after stopping its use.

1 May 2006

New method could predict individual patient responses to drug treatments

Scientists from Imperial College London and Pfizer have developed a new method that could predict individual patient responses to drug treatments. The authors anticipate that the development will advance biomedical research further towards development of personalised medicines.

28 Apr 2006

Potential vaccine for visceral leishmaniasis developed

Development of a fundamentally new "candidate," or potential, vaccine for visceral leishmaniasis (LEASH-ma-NIGH-a-sis), a parasitic disease that kills about 60,000 people annually, is reported in the current issue of ACS Chemical Biology. Spread by the bite of infected female sand flies, visceral leishmaniasis infects about 500,000 people annually, with the majority of cases occurring in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sudan and Brazil.

26 Apr 2006