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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

Phase III trial demonstrates rapid efficacy of Zelrix in treating acute migraine

NuPathe Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company developing innovative products for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases, today announced data from the pivotal Phase III trial of Zelrix™, a novel transdermal patch in clinical development for the treatment of acute migraine. Zelrix combines NuPathe’s proprietary SmartRelief™ iontophoretic transdermal technology with sumatriptan, the most prescribed treatment for acute migraine in the United States.

10 Sep 2009

Quatrx' second phase 3 study of ospemifene tablets provides positive results

QuatRx Pharmaceuticals Company, a privately-held biopharmaceutical company, today announced positive efficacy results from the second of two patient cohorts in the second pivotal Phase 3 study for Ophena(TM) (ospemifene tablets), the company's investigational compound in development for the treatment of postmenopausal vulvovaginal atrophy (VVA).

10 Sep 2009

Capsule launches new Enterprise Medical Device Connectivity Solution

Capsule (www.capsuletech.com), the leading provider of medical device connectivity, today announces the release of their new Enterprise Medical Device Connectivity Solution enabled by the Capsule Neuron™.

10 Sep 2009

Roche conducts third Phase 1 clinical trial utilizing Halozyme’s Enhanze Technology

Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: HALO), a biopharmaceutical company developing and commercializing products targeting the extracellular matrix, today announced that the first patient was dosed in a Phase 1 pharmacokinetic clinical trial using Enhanze™ Technology (rHuPH20, recombinant human hyaluronidase) in a subcutaneous formulation of a Roche biologic.

10 Sep 2009

Addressing employee mental health problems increases productivity: Researches

Effective treatment for employee mental health problems leads to significant improvements in productivity, according to a study in the September Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

10 Sep 2009