Drug News
Blood pressure drugs associated with reduced risk of cancers
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Thousands of individuals currently taking angiotension converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, a type of medication commonly used to lower blood pressure, may be doing more than treating their hypertension.
According to research presented at Digestive Disease Week. 2006 (DDW), ACE inhibitors not only effectively lower blood pressure, but they are also associated with a significant decrease in risk of developing three types of cancers: esophageal, pancreatic and colon.
Using a study population of nearly 500,000 U.S. veterans, researchers from the Overton Brooks VA Medical Center in Shreveport, LA, completed three case-controlled studies examining the correlation between ACE inhibitor use and esophageal, pancreatic and colon cancer incidence. The team analyzed statistics from the Veterans’ Integrated Service Network (VISN 16) database, a resource tool containing information about every veteran that has received care from the South Central VA Health Care Network from October 1998 to June 2004. Among the 483,733 patients in the study, 659 had esophageal cancer, 475 had pancreatic cancer, and 6,697 had colon and rectal cancer; approximately 38 percent were taking ACE inhibitors.
New Protein Target for Antiviral Drug Development
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Using small molecules containing platinum, Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center researchers have created a process to inhibit a class of proteins important in HIV and cancer.
The findings may help researchers develop new drugs to fight HIV or cancer by selectively targeting proteins known as zinc fingers.
In the May 30 issue of the journal Chemistry & Biology, researchers reported that a zinc finger protein, known as HIV NCp7, can be inhibited when it is exposed to a platinum complex. They observed that when the HIV NCp7 protein interacts with platinum, the zinc portion of the molecule is ejected from the protein chain. This causes the protein to lose its tertiary structure or overall shape. For these molecules, shape is an important property that enables the protein to carry out certain biological functions.
Sleeping pill rouses people in a permanent vegetative state
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South African researchers have found that a drug commonly used as a sleeping pill can temporarily revive people in a permanent vegetative state to the point where they can have conversations.
The drug Zolpidem which is commonly used to treat insomnia has this effect within 20 minutes but wears off after four hours and the patients return to their permanent vegetative state.
The drug was used with three patients all men around 30 who had suffered brain damage in car accidents.
Constipation drug effective, study suggests
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Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Wyeth said on Tuesday that their experimental treatment for constipation caused by opioid painkillers proved effective in a late-stage clinical trial.
The 133-patient study is the second pivotal-stage trial of the subcutaneous drug, called methylnaltrexone, in patients with painful, terminal illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease, who also suffer from constipation.
The study showed that 48 percent of severely constipated patients experienced a bowel movement within four hours of receiving their first dose of the drug, compared with 16 percent given a placebo. More than 70 percent of methylnaltrexone patients responded by the end of the first week of treatment.
Benadryl edges Clarinex for hay fever
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Diphenhydramine hydrochloride—more familiarly known as Benadryl—appears to be more effective than desloratadine, a.k.a. Clarinex, in relieving symptoms of moderate to severe hay fever, according to researchers.
“Benadryl provided significantly better overall allergy symptom relief than Clarinex,” investigator Dr. James T. Angello told Reuters Health. “Even more noteworthy in this study is the finding that Benadryl relieved nasal congestion just as well as it reduced allergic rhinitis (i.e., hay fever) symptoms as a whole.”
However, Benadryl caused more drowsiness than Clarinex.
Cholesterol drugs may improve abnormal heart rhythm
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A study of a class of commonly used cholesterol-lowering drugs, called statins, used by patients with enlarged hearts (dilated cardiomyopathy) shows that these patients had significant reductions in mortality, which was due in large measure to an anti-arrhythmic effect.
Investigators with the multicenter Defibrillators in Nonischemic Cardiomyopathy Treatment Evaluation (DEFINITE) trial evaluated the survival benefit and effect of statin therapy on sudden cardiac death in 458 patients with cardiomyopathy. Of the total, 229 patients were randomly selected to receive an implantable cardioverter defibrillator to correct their abnormal heart rhythm. These devices are programed to detect these abnormalities, and to then deliver a shock to restore normal heart rhythm.
Overall, 110 patients were taking a statin, while 348 were not. Statins include drugs such as Lipitor, Pravachol and Zocor.
Merck cancer vaccine faces Christian-right scrutiny
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Merck & Co. Inc.‘s vaccine to prevent the world’s most prevalent sexually transmitted infection sailed through a panel of U.S. health experts, despite early fears of opposition from the Christian Right that it might lead to promiscuity and a false sense of security.
The drugmaker’s efforts to educate Christian groups while touting the vaccine’s top selling point—prevention of cervical cancer—helped win them over.
But Merck may ultimately find itself at loggerheads with those same groups as it seeks to make the vaccine mandatory for school admission, a step considered key for widespread acceptance and one that many of the groups oppose.
Parkinson’s Drug Receives FDA Approval
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There’s a new tool in the fight against Parkinson’s disease. The FDA today granted approval for Azilect® (Rasagiline), a drug developed by Technion-Israel Institute of Technology researchers. The drug will be available in the United States within 8 to 10 weeks, and marketed by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd.
The brainchild of Technion Professors Moussa Youdim and John Finberg, Azilect is the first once-daily product for the treatment of Parkinson’s, a chronic, degenerative disease affecting a million people in the United States (4 million around the world).
Azilect is one of the few treatment options in the U.S. for all stages of Parkinson’s, including use as a stand-alone early-stage therapy and in combination with levodopa (a standard treatment for Parkinson’s disease) in more advanced stages of the disease. The drug is a monoamine oxidase type-B (MAO-B) inhibitor that blocks the breakdown of dopamine, a chemical that sends information to the parts of the brain that control movement and coordination.
US advisers back Parkinson’s dementia drug
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Novartis Pharmaceuticals’ drug Exelon is safe for treating dementia in patients with Parkinson’s disease, a U.S. advisory panel recommended on Wednesday.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel of outside experts voted unanimously that the drug, already sold to treat Alzheimer’s disease, could also be used to treat Parkinson’s patients with dementia.
The FDA will make the final decision on whether to approve the additional use, but the agency usually follows its panelists’ advice.
Aspirin can prevent deafness in antibiotic use
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People treated with the antibiotic gentamicin can reduce the risk of permanent hearing loss, a possible side effect, by also taking aspirin, a study showed on Wednesday.
The finding could be especially important in poorer countries where gentamicin and similar drugs, known as aminoglycosides, are used widely because they are inexpensive and often available over the counter, the researchers said.
Millions of people take the drug worldwide each year and perhaps one in 10 permanently loses at least some hearing because of it, the co-author of the study, Jochen Schacht of the University of Michigan, told Reuters.
New technique to speed discovery of drug targets in chemical genetics
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Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have developed a new technique to speed discovery of drug targets in chemical genetics. As highlighted on the April cover of Chemistry & Biology, Fox Chase researcher Jeffrey R. Peterson, Ph.D., and his colleagues describe a new way to swiftly find the proteins targeted by small molecule inhibitors during high-throughput screening (HTS) experiments. The new work offers a critical solution to a common stumbling block in this booming field of drug discovery.
HTS allows researchers to test thousands of small drug-like molecules at once for a specific biological activity, such as inhibiting the cell movements that allow cancer cells to spread in the body. Screening for potential new drug compounds in complex systems differs from the traditional drug discovery approach, which begins with one particular protein of interest and tries to find inhibitors for that specific target.
Consumer group awards ‘bitter pills’ to drugmakers
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It’s one of the most recognizable logos in drug advertising: a light green luna moth that floats across the television screen during advertisements for Sepracor Inc.‘s sleeping pill Lunesta.
A national health and consumer advocacy group on Wednesday singled out ads by Sepracor and four other drugmakers as evidence of overly aggressive direct marketing by pharmaceutical companies to consumers.
The Prescription Access Litigation Project (PAL), a coalition of 118 state, local and national consumer health advocacy groups, gave the five what it calls a “bitter pill” award.
Aspirin Shows Promise in Combating Antibiotic-Induced Hearing Loss
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Around the world, inexpensive antibiotics known as aminoglycosides have been used for the past 60 years in the battles against acute infections and tuberculosis, as antibacterial prophylaxis in cystic fibrosis and other patients, and in and other conditions. But for all of the good they do, the drugs also have been widely linked to irreversible hearing loss.
Now, researchers at the University of Michigan’s Kresge Hearing Research Institute and their Chinese colleagues, working under the leadership of Jochen Schacht, Ph.D., and Su-Hua Sha, M.D., have found that the hearing loss can be prevented in many people with the use of another inexpensive, widely available medication: aspirin. The results appear in the April 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The researchers studied 195 patients in China who received 80 to 160 milligrams of gentamicin (a type of aminoglycoside) intravenously twice daily, typically for five to seven days. Of those, 89 patients were given aspirin along with the antibiotic, and 106 were given placebos along with the antibiotic. The results were dramatic: The incidence of hearing loss in the group that was given placebos was 13 percent, while in the aspirin group it was just 3 percent, or 75 percent lower.
Study shows drugs work differently in the brains of men and women
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Results from a government-funded study at Johns Hopkins provide what is believed to be the first evidence in people that amphetamines have a greater effect on men’s brains than women’s - a discovery that could lead to tailored treatments for drug abuse and neurological diseases.
The study, led by Gary S. Wand, M.D., a professor of endocrinology in the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, found that men’s brains showed evidence of up to three times the amount of chemical dopamine as women’s when exposed to amphetamines.
The study will be published July 1 in The Journal of Biological Psychiatry.
Enzyme research points to better drugs and improved industrial processes
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Groundbreaking research on enzymes could revolutionise the way drugs are made and have major implications for the industrial sector, say its authors.
The University of Manchester team, working with colleagues in Bristol, has provided a unique insight into the working of enzymes - biological molecules that speed up chemical reactions in the body.
When these chemical reactions go wrong they can lead to disease, so modern drugs are designed to target enzymes and ‘switch them off’.
