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Sihuan's Roxatidine passes Chinese SFDA on-site inspection

Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd., a leading pharmaceutical company with the largest cardio-cerebral vascular drug franchise in China's prescription market, announced that Roxatidine Acetate Hydrochloride for Injection, Sihuan Pharmaceutical's first-to-market generic drug, recently passed on-site inspection for drug registration conducted by the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration.

25 May 2012

No contract renewal for CEO tied to billing collection controversy

Fairview Health Services of Minnesota opted not to renew the contract of CEO Mark Eustis after investigations into the role of bill collection company Accretive Health at the hospital.

25 May 2012

Bacteria are key contributors to the cause of IBS, study confirms

An overgrowth of bacteria in the gut has been definitively linked to Irritable Bowel Syndrome in the results of a new Cedars-Sinai study which used cultures from the small intestine. This is the first study to use this "gold standard" method of connecting bacteria to the cause of the disease that affects an estimated 30 million people in the United States.

25 May 2012

FDA reauthorization bill sails through Senate

Showing unusual bipartisan spirit, the Senate passed a massive FDA user-fee reauthorization bill Thursday designed to prevent drug shortages and speed federal approval of medicines, including lower-cost generic versions.

25 May 2012

EMA CHMP adopts positive opinion for Pfizer’s axitinib to treat advanced renal cell carcinoma

Pfizer announced today that the Committee for Human Medicinal Products (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has adopted a positive opinion regarding the marketing authorization of axitinib in the European Union (EU), for the treatment of adult patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), a type of advanced kidney cancer, after failure of prior treatment with sunitinib or a cytokine.

25 May 2012

While GOP pledges austerity, Democrats rebuff efforts to restructure Medicare, Medicaid

Health care continues to play a major role this political season. News outlets look at the parties' differences on spending, Sen. Baucus' early reelection calculations and a protest against Rep. Steve King.

25 May 2012

Immune system involved in removing Alzheimer's-causing substance in the brain

Recent work in mice suggested that the immune system is involved in removing beta-amyloid, the main Alzheimer's-causing substance in the brain. Researchers have now shown for the first time that this may apply in humans.

25 May 2012

School districts, hospitals cut nurses

Nurses, long a presence in many schools and the backbone of hospital care, are being cut back or stretched thin, according to several news organizations; Meanwhile, NPR reports on a poll that found three out of five patients feel their doctors rush through exams.

25 May 2012

Single-port laparoscopy bimanual robot abdominal surgery

Millions of Europeans undergo abdominal surgery each year to treat a range of different disorders, from cancer and heart disease to obesity. EU-funded researchers are developing innovative micro-robotics and micro-system technologies to make such surgeries less complicated, invasive and costly.

25 May 2012

Dueling student loan bills stall in Senate

Neither measure reached the 60-vote threshold needed to delay an interest rate increase for 7.4 million students with college loans. Republicans want to pay for it by abolishing a preventive health program in the health care law; Democrats proposed raising Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes on high-income owners of some privately held companies.

25 May 2012

Brain can rewire even at an advanced age

"This study overturns decades-old beliefs that most of the brain is hard-wired before a critical period that ends when one is a young adult," said MPFI neuroscientist Marcel Oberlaender, PhD, first author on the paper.

25 May 2012

$CDC report finds states spend only a fraction of tobacco funds to fight smoking$

CDC report finds states spend only a fraction of tobacco funds to fight smoking

The study says states collected $244 billion from tobacco settlement payments between 1998 and 2010, and used about $8 billion of that for anti-smoking campaigns.

25 May 2012

Table-top solid-state laser system cuts brain tissue with unprecedented precision

Researchers from the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy (MBI) were involved in the development of a table-top solid-state laser system that could cut brain tissue with unprecedented precision. The achievement is a result of an interdisciplinary EU project that involved partners from seven European countries.

25 May 2012

Auditors find Medicare lax in collecting overpayments; New members named to Medpac

Federal auditors say Medicare failed to collect about 80 percent of the more than $400 million that were identified as overpayments, Modern Healthcare reports.

25 May 2012

Merck welcomes launch of ROTATEQ in Rwanda of Africa’s rotavirus vaccination program

Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, welcomes today's launch in Rwanda of Africa's first national rotavirus vaccination program with ROTATEQ (rotavirus vaccine, live, oral, pentavalent), Merck's vaccine for the prevention of rotavirus disease.

25 May 2012

DiagnoCure’s PCA3 prostate cancer diagnostic test showcased at AUA meeting

DiagnoCure Inc., a Quebec life sciences company that develops and commercializes high-value cancer diagnostic tests, reported that the PROGENSA PCA3 prostate cancer diagnostic test has been featured in a number of presentations and discussions at the American Urological Association (AUA) meeting in Atlanta, GA.

25 May 2012

Prevalence of contraceptive use among women during first sexual encounter is 70.4%

Contraceptive use in Spain during the first sexual encounter is similar to other European countries. However, there are some geographical differences between Spanish regions: women in Murcia use contraceptives less (55.8%) whereas women in the Basque Country use them more (76.7%).

25 May 2012

European CHMP issues positive opinion to Vertex's KALYDECO for treatment of CF

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated announced today that the European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has issued a positive opinion by consensus recommending the approval of KALYDECO (ivacaftor) for people with cystic fibrosis (CF) ages 6 and older who have at least one copy of the G551D mutation in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene.

25 May 2012

BBSRC allocates £250M for strategic investment programmes

Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, will today announce substantial funding that will ensure the UK's bioscience research base remains globally competitive and at the forefront of meeting the grand challenges faced by society in the coming decades. The announcement will be made by the Minister during a visit to the Babraham Research Campus, near Cambridge, and highlighted again during a major speech at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.

25 May 2012

Gene therapy can effectively treat ADA-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency

Severe combined immunodeficiency is defect in the immune system that results in a loss of the adaptive immune cells known as B cells and T cells. Mutations in several different genes can lead to the development of severe combined immunodeficiency, including mutation of the adenosine deaminase (ADA) gene. Traditional treatment options, such as enzyme replacement therapy, are of limited efficacy, but bone marrow transplant from a compatible donor leads to a better response.

25 May 2012