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"You lie," GOP lawmaker shouts during president's speech

Partisan tensions at President Obama's address to Congress on Wednesday "went beyond the usual theatrics," with one Republican congressman shouting, "You lie," in the midst of the speech when the president promised his reform proposal would not pay for insurance for illegal immigrants, the Wall Street Journal reports.

10 Sep 2009

Teva's COPAXONE holds promise for relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NASDAQ: TEVA) today presented data that demonstrated patients treated for 10 and 15 years with COPAXONE® (glatiramer acetate injection) had significant reduction in disease severity. These data, generated from the longest continuous prospective study of any disease modifying therapy in relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), were presented today at the 25th Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) in Düsseldorf, Germany.

10 Sep 2009

Some insurers still back Obama after speech

"President Obama had few nice things to say about insurance companies in his speech on health care last night, but leaders of two of this region's largest private insurers -- Independence Blue Cross and Aetna Inc. -- gave him generally high marks anyway," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. He did draw one line in the sand that insurers hoped for: a mandate for all Americans to have health insurance.

10 Sep 2009

Retail clinics offer more treatments for chronic diseases

Retail health clinics are reevaluating their offerings. The Wall Street Journal reports: "Retail health clinics are adding treatments for chronic diseases such as asthma to their repertoire, hoping to find steadier revenue, but putting the clinics into greater competition with doctors' groups and hospitals."

10 Sep 2009

A non-invasive test for cystic fibrosis is the goal of University Of Arizona researchers

Researchers from The University of Arizona Colleges of Pharmacy and Medicine are teaming up to try to invent a novel non-invasive lung test for cystic fibrosis sufferers.

10 Sep 2009

Number of uninsured may jump to 50 million

"The number of people in the U.S. lacking health insurance may have grown as much as 9 percent to 50 million people last year, adding fuel to President Barack Obama's push for overhauling the system," Bloomberg reports. "The likely increase was driven by a jump in U.S. unemployment, said Ana Gupte, a Sanford Bernstein & Co. Inc. analyst in New York who follows UnitedHealth Group Inc. and WellPoint Inc., the top two U.S. health insurers.

10 Sep 2009

NIH provides Inviragen second major grant to develop a dengue vaccine

Inviragen has received a $600,000 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to partially support its continued efforts to develop a safe and effective dengue vaccine. The two-year grant will fund a collaborative effort led by Inviragen and involving scientists at the University of Wisconsin and Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The supported work will include additional optimization of Inviragen’s vaccine to generate more potent immune responses.

10 Sep 2009

Harkin moves to Health Committee chair after Dodd opts against it

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., wrestled hard with the question of whether to take the Senate Health Committee chair once held by his good friend, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. But when he passed on it, Sen. Tom Harkin got the job in an arrangement that gives the Iowa Democrat a huge say in government health policy.

10 Sep 2009

U.S. public health officials recommend early flu vaccination

With increased influenza activity anticipated this fall, U.S. public health officials and other leading medical experts today urged Americans to be vigilant and get immunized early for protection against seasonal influenza - a threat to Americans' health each and every year.

10 Sep 2009

Electronic health records: A focus for big tech companies

"On one proposal for health care reform at least, there is a rare bipartisan consensus: the push to computerize patient records," The New York Times reports. The federal recovery package sets aside $19 billion "to encourage doctors and hospitals to install and use electronic health records. So even as the Obama administration and Congress struggle with broad health policy legislation, the technology industry is pursuing the opportunity in digital health records as never before." The money will not be available until next year, but General Electric, I.B.M. and Verizon are all "hoping to get their share."

10 Sep 2009

UCSB researchers use lasers to deliver drugs into cancer cells

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have developed a new way to deliver drugs into cancer cells by exposing them briefly to a non-harmful laser. Their results are published in a recent article in ACS Nano, a journal of the American Chemical Society.

10 Sep 2009

Baucus readies reform move, with or without Republicans

Sen. Max Baucus is readying his Senate Finance Committee to move a health care reform bill to the full Senate, with or without the support of Republicans negotiating their position.

10 Sep 2009

Acceleron's Phase 1 trial of ACE-031 reveals its potential in treating neuromuscular diseases

Acceleron Pharma, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics that modulate the growth of cells and tissues including red blood cells, bone, and muscle, today announced preliminary results from the ACE-031 Phase 1 single dose clinical trial demonstrating that ACE-031 increased lean body mass and muscle volume. The results from this randomized, placebo-controlled study were presented at the 14th International Congress of the World Muscle Society in Geneva, Switzerland.

10 Sep 2009

Half of six million major depressive disorder with comorbid panic attack cases go untreated

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that in the U.S., out of six million cases of major depressive disorder with comorbid panic attack, three million are untreated. Comorbid mental disorders are influential factors impacting the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.

10 Sep 2009

Human neural stem cells to treat Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease

StemCells, Inc. (NASDAQ:STEM) announced today that it will soon initiate with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Children’s Hospital a Phase I clinical trial to evaluate the therapeutic potential of StemCells’ proprietary HuCNS-SC® product candidate (purified human neural stem cells) to treat Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease (PMD), a myelination disorder that primarily affects infants and young children.

10 Sep 2009

Comparative effectiveness may not produce hoped-for savings, Study finds

One component of Democrats' health reform plan, comparative effectiveness research, would seek to improve quality and lower medical costs by identifying the most clinically and cost-effective treatments available, but a new study by the Rand Corp. finds the impact of the research may be slow to arrive, BusinessWeek reports.

10 Sep 2009

GI Company's Phase II study demonstrates safety of rhITF oral spray formulation

Published today, as an original investigation, in the peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical Oncology, are statistically significant Phase II clinical results of The GI Company's lead clinical compound, rhITF (recombinant human Intestinal Trefoil Factor) oral spray. The article is titled, "A Phase II, Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-Controlled Study of rhITF Oral Spray for Prevention of Oral Mucositis in Colorectal Cancer Patients Receiving 5-Fluorouracil-based Chemotherapy."

10 Sep 2009

PinnacleCare and Champions Biotechnology collaborate to offer personalized oncology services worldwide

Champions Biotechnology, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: CSBR), a company whose personalized oncology services division assists physicians by providing personalized treatment options for their cancer patients, has entered into a collaboration agreement with PinnacleCare, the pioneer and the leading private health advisory company in the world.

10 Sep 2009

FDA approves Ascenta's IND for AT-406 multi-IAP antagonist

Ascenta Therapeutics announced today that following the approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of its Investigational New Drug (IND) Application for AT-406, an orally-active, small molecule, multi-IAP antagonist, the company will initiate a Phase I clinical trial in patients with advanced cancer during the fourth quarter of 2009.

10 Sep 2009

Speaker Pelosi comments on President Obama's health reform address

"Tonight, President Obama made a forceful case to the Congress and the country for long-overdue health insurance reform. We are closer than ever before in history to real progress on this issue that touches the lives of every American and impacts our economy: ensuring stability and security for Americans with health insurance, and affordable coverage for those currently without.

10 Sep 2009