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Media coverage of potential link between hormonal contraception, HIV risk needed more 'critical thinking'

In a Nature News opinion piece, James Shelton, science adviser for USAID's Bureau for Global Health, discusses media coverage of recent findings from the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases showing that women's use of hormonal contraception (HC) may increase the risk of HIV acquisition or transmission.

4 Nov 2011

Amphetamine use in adolescence can affect brain chemistry and behaviour

Amphetamine use in adolescence can cause neurobiological imbalances and increase risk-taking behaviour, and these effects can persist into adulthood, even when subjects are drug free. These are the conclusions of a new study using animal models conducted by McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) researcher Dr. Gabriella Gobbi and her colleagues.

4 Nov 2011

TPI announces formulation expansion program for GMOL

Tianyin Pharmaceutical Co., Inc., a pharmaceutical company that specializes in patented biopharmaceutical medicine, modernized traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), branded generics and active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) today announced the formulation expansion program for its flagship product Gingko Mihuan Oral Liquid.

4 Nov 2011

Escitalopram reduces pain severity, interference in opioid-dependent patients

In what is believed to be the first study of its kind to demonstrate an association between the antidepressant escitalopram and improved general pain, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), have found that opioid-dependent patients treated with escitalopram experienced meaningful reductions in pain severity and pain interference during the first three months of therapy.

4 Nov 2011

FDA accepts VIVUS' Qnexa NDA for filing and review

VIVUS, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for filing and review the New Drug Application (NDA) for Qnexa to treat obesity. The company resubmitted the NDA on October 17, 2011.

4 Nov 2011

Bristol-Myers Squibb, ASLAN partner to develop BMS-777607 for solid tumors

ASLAN Pharmaceuticals Pte Ltd, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Singapore, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company today announced an innovative strategic partnership allowing for the rapid development of BMS-777607, Bristol-Myers Squibb's investigational small molecule inhibitor of the MET receptor tyrosine kinase for treatment of solid tumors.

4 Nov 2011

A prescription for prevention

Medicine-related hospital admissions could be reduced by a simple initiative designed and implemented by researchers at the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Pharmacy.

4 Nov 2011

Merck’s cholesterol lowering drug gets FDA panel’s vote

A health advisors’ panel have unanimously backed the use of Merck & Co's cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin for preventing stroke and other heart problems in patients with chronic kidney disease, but only in those patients not yet on dialysis. The panel voted 16-0 during a meeting today in Silver Spring, Maryland.

3 Nov 2011

Savient third quarter net loss decreases to $27.4 million

Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc. reported financial results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2011, which reflect the Company's continuing investment in the U.S. launch of KRYSTEXXA (pegloticase). Savient ended the quarter with $202.7 million in cash and short-term investments, a decrease of $37.6 million for the quarter.

3 Nov 2011

POZEN third quarter revenue increases to $4.9 million

POZEN Inc., a pharmaceutical company committed to transforming medicine that transforms lives, today announced results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2011.

3 Nov 2011

CMS issues J-code for Savient's KRYSTEXXA

Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has assigned a product-specific billing code, or J-code, for KRYSTEXXA (pegloticase), which is used for the treatment of chronic gout in adult patients refractory to conventional therapy.

3 Nov 2011

FDA EMDAC votes to recommend approval of Merck's VYTORIN for pre-dialysis CKD

Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced today that the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unanimously voted to recommend approval of Merck's VYTORIN (ezetimibe/simvastatin) for use in patients with pre-dialysis chronic kidney disease.

3 Nov 2011

EBV vaccine could prevent mononucleosis and cancers linked to virus

In a new article from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Harold Varmus, M.D., director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), join Gary Nabel, M.D., Ph.D., director of NIAID's Vaccine Research Center, and Jeffrey Cohen, M.D., chief of NIAID's Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, in summarizing a recent meeting of experts who gathered to map directions toward an EBV vaccine.

3 Nov 2011

Exendin-4 drug could prevent later development of diabetes in children

Pediatric researchers who tested newborn animals with an existing human drug used in adults with diabetes report that this drug, when given very early in life, prevents diabetes from developing in adult animals. If this finding can be repeated in humans, it may become a way to prevent at-risk infants from developing type 2 diabetes.

3 Nov 2011

Synthetic artemisinin discovery could make malaria treatments more affordable, accessible

"Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the biotech start-up Amyris have developed a process to manufacture artemisinin, a crucial ingredient in first-line malaria drugs that until now had to be extracted from a natural crop called sweet wormwood," PBS NewsHour reports.

3 Nov 2011

Benefits of combined therapy for men with high-risk prostate cancer

Men with locally advanced or high-risk prostate cancer who receive combined radiation and hormone therapy live longer and are less likely to die from their disease, shows clinical research led by radiation oncologists at the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) Cancer Program, University Health Network.

3 Nov 2011

Exenatide's rapid anti-inflammatory effect may inhibit atherosclerosis

Exenatide, a drug commonly prescribed to help patients with type 2 diabetes improve blood sugar control, also has a powerful and rapid anti-inflammatory effect, a University at Buffalo study has shown.

3 Nov 2011

Researchers use diabetes drug to permanently reprogram insulin-producing cells

3 Nov 2011

Allergy shots are cost-effective and deliver relief in weeks

Allergy shots, an age-old treatment for allergy sufferers, are getting a shot in the arm from new research. This proven therapy saves money; accelerated schedules deliver relief in weeks, rather than months; and alternative methods are on the horizon, according to allergists at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in Boston, Nov 3-8.

3 Nov 2011

Promedior's Pentraxin-2 effectively suppresses liver fibrosis

Promedior, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company developing novel therapies to treat fibrotic, inflammatory and neovascular diseases, today announced that data from preclinical studies of Serum Amyloid P (Pentraxin-2) will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD 2011), being held November 4-8, 2011, in San Francisco, CA.

3 Nov 2011