Tuberculosis News and Research

Latest Tuberculosis News and Research

Cholera case confirmed in Dominican Republic; Haitian protestors blame U.N. peacekeeping troops for cholera outbreak

Officials on Tuesday said they had confirmed the first case of cholera in Haiti's neighbor, the Dominican Republic, the Associated Press/Forbes reports

18 Nov 2010

Merck announces FDA Advisory Committee approval of GARDASIL for anal cancer and AIN treatment

Merck announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee has advised that the data presented support an indication for GARDASIL® [Human Papillomavirus Quadrivalent (Types 6, 11, 16, and 18) Vaccine, Recombinant] for the prevention of anal cancer and anal intraepithelial neoplasia (AIN) in both males and females 9 through 26 years of age.

18 Nov 2010

New inhalable dry powder antibiotic may reduce TB treatment time

New research being presented at the 2010 International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) Pharmaceutical Sciences World Congress (PSWC) in association with the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Annual Meeting and Exposition will feature an inhalable dry powder antibiotic that when used alone or with current treatments may significantly reduce treatment for tuberculosis (TB) and multi-drug resistant TB.

17 Nov 2010

Medical Acoustics receives UB CAT/NYSTAR grant

Medical Acoustics LLC, a commercial-stage medical device company which employs acoustic technologies for diagnostic and therapeutic medical applications, today announced that it has been awarded a UB CAT/NYSTAR grant.

16 Nov 2010

WHO endorses low tech, low cost, rapid test for multi-drug resistant TB

A rapid, low cost test for diagnosing tuberculosis (TB) - including multi-drug resistance - has been endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for use in resource-poor settings.

15 Nov 2010

Report documents increase in R&D projects on developing world diseases

Drugmakers are now working on over 100 R&D projects designed to tackle diseases of the developing world and almost 80% of them are being carried out with non-industry partners, according to a report released on Wednesday by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA).

15 Nov 2010

Immunitor completes V5 Phase IIb imm01 clinical trial enrollment for TB

Immune Network Ltd., advises that its potential acquisition, Immunitor USA Inc., has announced the completion of enrollment in its Phase IIb imm01 clinical trial of V5 in tuberculosis.

15 Nov 2010

Aeras receives grant to develop new vaccines for TB

The Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation is pleased to announce that the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs has renewed its funding to Aeras with a pledge of an additional 11.7 million over four years (2011-2014) to further its efforts to develop new vaccines to help combat the global epidemic of tuberculosis.

12 Nov 2010

WHO annual global TB report released

The WHO on Thursday released its annual report on global tuberculosis control, which showed that in 2009 there were 9.4 million new tuberculosis cases and 1.7 million people died of the disease, Reuters reports.

12 Nov 2010

G20 summit opens in Seoul; development plan announcement expected

The world's biggest rich and emerging powers escalated a war of words over trade and currencies Thursday, as leaders opened a G20 summit [in Seoul, South Korea] struggling to iron out distortions that threaten global growth, Agence France-Presse reports in an article examining some of the major disputes.

11 Nov 2010

Abbott presents results of 2 pivotal HUMIRA studies at American College of Rheumatology meeting

Today, Abbott presents results from a pooled analysis of two pivotal HUMIRA® (adalimumab) studies, which look at patients with early and long-standing moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA), at the American College of Rheumatology meeting in Atlanta.

10 Nov 2010

Pres. Obama emphasizes U.S.-Indian partnerships to track, fight diseases

On his final day in India as part of his 10-day Asia-Pacific tour, President Barack Obama on Monday addressed the joint session of the Indian Parliament in New Dehli, where he emphasized the importance of U.S.-Indian partnerships to tackle disease and improve education, Indo-Asian News Service/Hindustan Times reports (11/8).

10 Nov 2010

Grand Challenges Explorations projects receive new grants for tuberculosis research

Weill Cornell Medical College announced today that it was awarded two $100,000 grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the next phase of Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative to encourage bold and unconventional ideas for global health.

10 Nov 2010

Fake antimalarial medications uncovered across Ghana

Substandard and counterfeit versions of thirteen key antimalarial medicines were uncovered in multiple locations across Ghana by the Medicines Quality Monitoring surveillance program. Set up by the Ghana Food and Drugs Board (FDB) in collaboration with the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the program samples antimalarials across the public and private sectors.

9 Nov 2010

New TB-drugome may help identify protein targets for tuberculosis

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the University of Leeds have linked hundreds of federally approved drugs to more than 1,000 proteins in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), opening new avenues to repurpose these drugs to treat TB.

9 Nov 2010

SIMPONI injection improves inflammation, structural damage in RA patients

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analyses from two Phase 3 clinical trials showed that once every four week subcutaneous injections of SIMPONI (golimumab) 50 mg plus methotrexate resulted in statistically significant improvements in markers of inflammation and structural damage in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared with placebo plus methotrexate.

9 Nov 2010

New Yorker examines global TB diagnostic challenges

The New Yorker examines the challenges associated with treating tuberculosis across the world and looks at whether a rapid diagnostic test could prevent millions of deaths from the disease.

8 Nov 2010

TB Alliance launches three-drug combination trial for drug-sensitive and multidrug-resistant TB

In advance of the 41st Union World Conference, the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance) today announced the launch of the first clinical trial to test a novel tuberculosis regimen in a new development paradigm designed to speed new treatments to patients. This novel three-drug combination shows promise to treat both drug-sensitive (DS-TB) and multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), and alter the course of the TB pandemic by shortening and simplifying treatment worldwide.

8 Nov 2010

Laparoscopic surgery safe and effective for removing bowel tumours

Laparoscopic or 'keyhole' surgery is a safe, effective way of removing bowel tumours and should be offered to all patients undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer, according to researchers from the University of Leeds.

8 Nov 2010

Leaders discuss best practices, challenges for detecting counterfeit medications

During the opening of the 10th annual meeting of the International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP) in Accra, Ghana, the country's "Vice President John Dramani Mahama on Wednesday called on member countries of the society to institute effective measures that would help detect fake and counterfeit drugs," Ghana News Agency reports.

8 Nov 2010