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No COBRA subsidy in Senate-passed unemployment benefits bill

"U.S. workers who lost their jobs as of June 1 won't be eligible for a 65 percent federal subsidy to help pay for health insurance under an unemployment bill the Senate approved yesterday," Bloomberg reports. That provision and other assistance programs were stripped from the jobless bill because of concerns about how to pay for them.

23 Jul 2010

FDA approves Mylan's ANDA for generic Solodyn ER tablets for acne treatment

Mylan Inc. today announced that its subsidiary Matrix Laboratories Limited received final approval on July 20 from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for Minocycline Hydrochloride Extended Release Tablets (Minocycline ER), 45 mg, 90 mg and 135 mg, the generic version of Solodyn® ER, a treatment for acne, sold by Medicis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (Medicis). Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. commenced immediate shipment of the product after approval.

23 Jul 2010

Researchers discover fundamental entry mechanism of fungal microbes into plant and human host cells

A research team led by scientists at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech has discovered a fundamental entry mechanism that allows dangerous fungal microbes to infect plants and cause disease. The discovery paves the way for the development of new intervention strategies to protect plant, and even some animal cells, from deadly fungal infections. The findings are published in the July 23 edition of the journal Cell.

23 Jul 2010

St. Jude Medical second-quarter net sales increase 11% to $1.313 billion

St. Jude Medical, Inc., a global medical device company, today reported sales and net earnings for the second quarter ended July 3, 2010.

23 Jul 2010

More homeowners modify houses to "age in place"

The Seattle Times/The Orlando Sentinel: "The new catch phrase among homeowners is 'aging in place.' Instead of selling their homes and moving into retirement villages or assisted-living quarters, a growing number of older Americans are modifying their homes to make them more user-friendly as they age. The concept has caught on so successfully, it even has its own National Aging in Place Week, which falls on Oct. 11-16 this year."

23 Jul 2010

FDA approves Impax's ANDA for generic OPANA ER 30mg tablet

Impax Laboratories, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted final approval of the Company's Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for the generic version of OPANA® ER (oxymorphone hydrochloride) Extended Release 30mg tablet. In June 2010, the Company was granted final approval for the 5mg, 10mg, 20mg, and 40mg tablets.

23 Jul 2010

Poor intake of vitamins tends to have low bone density in children with celiac disease

Children with celiac disease need to include certain must-have vitamins in their diets to stave off weak bones and osteoporosis, say researchers at the University of Alberta. A study of 43 children and teens from three to 18 years of age diagnosed with celiac disease showed that they also tended to have low bone density, likely due to poor intake and absorption of vitamins and minerals. That means they should be getting more of bone-boosting vitamins such as K and D in their diets, says Diana Mager, a professor of agricultural, food and nutritional science at the U of A, and one of the researchers on the project.

23 Jul 2010

Michigan challenge to health law begins

The Detroit News: On Wednesday, "[a] federal judge heard arguments [in the] lawsuit that is being watched nationwide for its challenge of congressional authority to reform health care in a way that would penalize citizens who fail to obtain their own health insurance." The attorney for one plaintiff, The Thomas More Law Center, a group espousing religious principles, said, "There is no precedent for this power grab" (Guthrie, 7/22).

23 Jul 2010

New findings on "successful aging"

What, exactly, does "successful aging" mean? For more than a half century, researchers and gerontologists have argued whether successful aging is better defined subjectively or objectively (physical disease-related disability or mental decline). Answering this question is more than an academic exercise. As the first members of the famed "baby boom generation" reach age 65, understanding what it means to remain healthy and independent in later life could have an enormous impact on health care delivery and medical policy.

23 Jul 2010

Funding for new medical ventures improving

The Dallas Morning News reports on the funding climate for health care technology startups.

23 Jul 2010

Study reveals link between allergies, asthma and old age

Mistaken for illnesses like bronchitis and emphysema, exacerbated by medications like aspirin, and overlooked by patients and doctors alike, asthma is a common and highly treatable condition in older adults. And while allergies tend to decrease with age, they also are frequently disregarded as a potential cause of misery for the elderly.

23 Jul 2010

2010 Life Beyond Cancer Retreat invites applications

The Life Beyond Cancer Foundation is calling for applications from cancer survivors, oncology nurses, social workers, oncologists, and primary care physicians who help diagnose cancer to attend the 2010 Life Beyond Cancer Retreat. The 11th annual retreat, held Nov. 18 – 21 at Lakeway Resort & Spa in Austin, Texas, helps women rekindle their spirits, relax their minds and bodies, and rejuvenate their souls.

23 Jul 2010

hBD-3 biomarker helps early stage detection of oral cancer

Detecting oral cancer in its earliest stages can save the lives of the nearly 40,500 people diagnosed annually. But early detection has been difficult. Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine researchers discovered a biomarker, called human beta defensin-3 (hBD-3), which may serve as an early warning. The defensin is present in all oral cancers and associated with the early stages of oral cancer.

23 Jul 2010

Uroplasty prices underwritten public offering of common stock

Uroplasty, Inc. announced today that its underwritten public offering of 4 million shares of its common stock was priced at $3.50 per share. Uroplasty has granted the underwriters of the offering an option to purchase up to an additional 600,000 shares of common stock within the next 30 days, solely to cover over-allotments, if any. All of the shares in the offering are being offered by Uroplasty. Uroplasty expects the offering to close on July 27, 2010, subject to customary closing conditions.

23 Jul 2010

Osteocalcin hormone can regulate glucose levels: Research

Researchers led by Columbia University Medical Center have discovered that the skeleton plays an important role in regulating blood sugar and have further illuminated how bone controls this process. The finding, published in Cell, is important because it may lead to more targeted drugs for type 2 diabetes.

23 Jul 2010

AIDS 2010 studies, releases: Criminalization, discrimination of high-risk groups; Test-and-treat; UNAIDS launches HIV prevention commission

The criminalization of men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people in Asia is holding back efforts to contain HIV/AIDS in the region, according to a report presented Wednesday by the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) and Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health at the International AIDS Conference-AIDS 2010, VOA News reports. The report "linked the criminalization of homosexual behavior to an increase in the infection rate of HIV and AIDS in Asia," the news service writes (Dewan, 7/21).

23 Jul 2010

Early bird registration for 2nd International Symposium on MR-guided Focused Ultrasound ends on July 31, 2010

The Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation today issued a reminder that early bird registration discounts will end on Saturday, July 31 for the upcoming 2nd International Symposium on MR-guided Focused Ultrasound.

23 Jul 2010

Endologix second-quarter total revenue increases 19% to $15.7 million

Endologix, Inc., developer of minimally invasive treatments for aortic disorders, today announced financial results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2010.

23 Jul 2010

Gene expression profiling may provide molecular diagnostic tool to diagnose depression

Blood tests have been extremely important tools aiding doctors in making medical diagnoses and in guiding the treatment of many diseases. However, psychiatry is one area of medicine where there are few diagnostic blood tests.New scientific fields may someday generate blood tests that can be used for these purposes. Some of the areas under increasingly intensive study are genetics, the study of variations in the genes that can be extracted from blood cells, and genomics like proteomics, the measurement of the levels of specific proteins in the blood, and gene expression profiling, which measures the levels of RNA produced from DNA as an indication of the level of the "activity" of particular genes.

23 Jul 2010

AIDS 2010: Halving HIV/TB co-infection deaths; Financial transaction tax discussed, and more

UNAIDS and the Stop TB Partnership joined together on Thursday at the International AIDS Conference-AIDS 2010 in Vienna, Austria, with the goal of preventing 200,000 deaths annually from HIV and tuberculosis co-infection, Agence France-Presse reports. TB is the number one killer of people living with HIV/AIDS (Ingham, 7/22).

23 Jul 2010