Drug News
Drug firms eye fat profits from new obesity pills
|
|
A marijuana joint might seem an odd starting point in the search for weight-loss secrets.
Yet a compound switching off the same brain circuits that make people hungry when they smoke cannabis looks set to become the world’s first blockbuster anti-obesity medicine, with sales tipped by analysts to top $3 billion a year.
Half of Americans use prescription drugs - survey
|
|
About half of all U.S. women and 40 percent of U.S. men are currently using or have recently used a prescription drug, according to government statistics published on Thursday.
This “snapshot” of information was based on a survey that found that 54 percent of white non-Hispanic women and 43 percent of white non-Hispanic men had used a prescription drug in the past month, the National Center for Health Statistics said in a statement.
Roche will help generic drug makers make HIV drug
|
|
Drug maker Roche Holding AG said on Thursday it would help generic drug makers in the developing world produce versions of HIV drug saquinavir.
Roche will offer manufacturers in sub-Saharan Africa and the world’s least developed countries the technical expertise they need to make the drug, which is recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to treat the virus that leads to AIDS.
Merck says will vigorously fight Texas Vioxx suit
|
|
Merck & Co. Inc. said on Tuesday it will conduct a “vigorous defense” of itself in a Vioxx product liability suit scheduled to go to trial on January 24 in Texas.
Merck said it believes evidence in the case will show that its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx did not cause the heart attack of the plaintiff, Leonel Garza Sr., who died of the attack on April 21, 2001.
Psychotropic drug prescriptions for teenagers has skyrocketed
|
|
Psychotropic drug prescriptions for teenagers skyrocketed 250 percent between 1994 and 2001, rising particularly sharply after 1999, when the federal government allowed direct-to-consumer advertising and looser promotion of off-label use of prescription drugs, according to a new Brandeis University study in the journal Psychiatric Services.
This dramatic increase in adolescent visits to health care professionals which resulted in a prescription for a psychotropic drug occurred despite the fact that few psychotropic drugs, typically prescribed for ADHD, depression and other mood disorders, are approved for use in children under 18. The study is one of the first to focus on prescriptions to adolescents, rather than children in general.
Statins do not appear to reduce the incidence of cancer
|
|
The cholesterol-lowering medications called statins do not appear to reduce the incidence of cancer or cancer deaths, according to a meta-analysis of previous studies in the January 4 issue of JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Other studies have suggested that statins reduce the risk of developing cancer, the authors provide as background information in the review article. “Statins have been studied in numerous large-scale, randomized, active- or placebo-controlled trials for primary and secondary prevention of coronary artery disease. In these trials, statins reduced the risk of a first myocardial infarction (heart attack) and overall mortality. With long-term follow-up and collection of cancer data in a majority of studies, insight into the risk of cancer among statin-na? persons and statin users can be derived,” the authors write.
Scientists develop prototype drug to prevent osteoporosis based on cannabinoids produced by body
|
|
Substances produced in the body that act like those found in the cannabis plant help preserve bone density, according to researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Based on this finding, a prototype for a new drug to prevent osteoporosis (loss of bone density) without any psychoactive side effects has already been developed.
An article describing this research appears this week in the prestigious American journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A.). The researchers, from the Bone Laboratory of the Hebrew University, are headed by Prof. Itai Bab, working in cooperation with Prof. Esther Shohami of the Laboratory for the Study of Bain Trauma; Prof. Raphael Mechoulam of the Hebrew University School of Pharmacy; doctoral students Orr Ofek, Vardits Krem and Yossi Tam; and master’s degree student Meirav Fogel.
New drug shows promise in fighting Tuberculosis
|
|
Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have determined how a promising drug candidate attacks the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (TB). Published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the finding may help scientists optimize the drug candidate, PA-824, which targets Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb).
“PA-824, now in early stage clinical trials, holds promise for shortening the TB treatment regimen, which is currently cumbersome and lengthy,” says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “This new finding will allow a streamlined approach for making improved versions of the drug.”
Roche says US OKs Tamiflu for prevention in young
|
|
U.S. regulators approved Roche AG’s request to market antiviral drug Tamiflu for preventing influenza in children ages 1 through 12, the company said on Wednesday.
Tamiflu is being stockpiled by countries in case of an avian flu pandemic in people. The drug previously was approved for preventing infection in adults and adolescents age 13 and older and for treating the flu in anyone 1 year old or older.
UK reviews controversial curbs on Alzheimer drugs
|
|
British healthcare experts meet on Tuesday to review a planned ban on the new use of Alzheimer’s drugs within the state health service, which has outraged both patients and drug companies.
The deliberations of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) committee will resonate with governments around the world, who increasingly have to weigh up the benefits of modern medicines against their price.
Popular Antidepressants Boost Brain Growth
|
|
The beneficial effects of a widely used class of antidepressants might be the result of increased nerve-fiber growth in key parts of the brain, according to a Johns Hopkins study being published in the January 2006 issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry.
The study on rats, led by Vassilis E. Koliatsos, M.D., a neuropathologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, found that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) increase the density of nerve-impulse-carrying axons in the frontal and parietal lobes of the neocortex and part of the limbic brain which control the sense of smell, emotions, motivation, and organs that work reflexively such as the heart, intestines and stomach. “It appears that SSRI antidepressants rewire areas of the brain that are important for thinking and feeling, as well as operating the autonomic nervous system,” said Koliatsos.
Oral contraceptives safe in lupus patients
|
|
Women with lupus can safely take oral contraceptives without fear that the pill will worsen their condition, two studies released on Wednesday showed.
The studies in this week’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine shake up the conventional wisdom that discouraged doctors from prescribing the pill and forced many female lupus patients to opt for less convenient contraceptives or even abortion.
US FDA issues alert on Abbott antibiotic
|
|
U.S. regulators alerted the public on Friday to a study showing a higher death rate among heart disease patients one year after taking the Abbott Laboratories Inc. antibiotic Biaxin, as part of an effort to release early information about potential safety concerns.
Officials have not reached a final conclusion about the information, the notice on the Food and Drug Administration Web site said. Abbott described the results as “a random finding” that contrasted with decades of other research.
Early results suggest Paxil birth defect risk
|
|
Early results of new studies suggest GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s antidepressant Paxil increases the risk of birth defects when women take it during the first three months of pregnancy, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday.
“FDA is advising patients that this drug should usually not be taken during pregnancy, but for some women who have already been taking Paxil, the benefits of continuing may be greater than the potential risk to the fetus,” the FDA said in a statement.
Most Tolerable Antidepressant May Not be Most Efficacious
|
|
When it comes to antidepressants, popularity may translate into tolerability more than efficacy, suggests a systematic review of clinical trials by the Cochrane Collaboration. Consider Prozac (fluoxetine), for instance.
According to the Cochrane analysis, Zoloft (sertraline) and Effexor (venlafaxine) may be somewhat better than more popular Prozac for treating depression, reported Andrea Cipriani, M.D., of the University of Verona, and colleagues. However, patients seemed to tolerate Prozac better than other antidepressants.
