Scientists at the German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK) have started a study to find out whether a monoclonal antibody restoring vascular integrity is safe and has positive effects on organ functions of patients with cardiogenic shock. The multicenter trial is sponsored by the University of Hamburg, financially supported by the biopharmaceutical company Adrenomed AG, and led by Dr.…
Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) and the Mannheim University Medical Center have now discovered that a certain group of cancer drugs (MEK Inhibitors) activates the cancer-promoting Wnt signalling pathway in colorectal cancer cells. This can lead to the accumulation of tumor cells with stem cell characteristics that are resistant to many…
Imperial medical students have helped to devise a new type of ‘decoy’ drug to tackle infections that are resistant to antibiotics. In lab tests on bacterial cultures, the new drug successfully killed a strain of drug-resistant bacteria. It works by delivering two antibiotics, one of which is effectively hidden. When the bacteria fight against the first ‘decoy’ antibiotic, this action…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Vyndaqel (tafamidis meglumine) and Vyndamax (tafamidis) capsules for the treatment of the heart disease (cardiomyopathy) caused by transthyretin mediated amyloidosis (ATTR-CM) in adults. These are the first FDA-approved treatments for ATTR-CM. Vyndaqel and Vyndamax have the same active moiety, tafamidis, but they are not substitutable on a…
As a synthetic opioid approved for treating severe pain, fentanyl has shown clear medical benefits. However, in recent years, continuous abuse of fentanyl and its derived analogues substances has become a major public health issue – overdoses and deaths associated with illicitly-manufactured fentanyl rose dramatically. Some of these synthetic analogues have extremely high potency and only…
In the past, we repeatedly focused our attention on developments in the clinical application of mass spectrometry-based methods in patient care. Various aspects became significant. Today, the use of Liquid Chromatography Triple Quad Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) can be considered today’s standard, although classically applied immunoassays continue to be…
Researchers at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center have developed a novel stroke therapy that, when tested in mice and dogs, has proven superior to the standard of care therapy now offered to patients suffering a stroke. Findings of the study are published online in Molecular Therapy. “We have shown that our drug, which is completely…
Half of patients prescribed statins in primary care fail to reach ‘healthy’ cholesterol levels after two years of treatment with these drugs, reveals research published online in the journal Heart. The findings back up those of previous studies, and highlight the need for personalised medicine to tackle high cholesterol and lower the significantly increased risks of future heart disease and…
NHS organisations are entering into working partnerships with drug companies, but they are not making the details, and even existence, of many of these deals available to the public, reveals an investigation by The BMJ today. These partnerships are used to support a variety of initiatives, including several projects to review the medication of people with ADHD, and more than 20 projects that…
Family planning for women might one day be as simple as putting on an earring. A report published recently in the Journal of Controlled Release describes a technique for administering contraceptive hormones through special backings on jewelry such as earrings, wristwatches, rings or necklaces. The contraceptive hormones are contained in patches applied to portions of the jewelry in contact with…
The pill could be blurring your social judgement ‒ but perhaps not enough so you'd notice. By challenging women to identify complex emotional expressions like pride or contempt, rather than basic ones like happiness or fear, scientists have revealed subtle changes in emotion recognition associated with oral contraceptive pill (OCP) use. Published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, their study found…
Acute porphyria is a group of uncommon diseases that can cause severe, potentially life-threatening attacks of abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and paralysis. Liver transplantation is currently the only effective treatment available for the most seriously afflicted patients. A clinical trial conducted in collaboration with researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden now shows that a new drug…
Currently many researchers and experts assume that the next great socio-economic revolution will include a completely new definition of health and how we define illnesses and therapies. “Our health system today can no longer be sustained in its existing form. It has become too expensive and too ineffective,” Professor Harald Schmidt, head of the Department of Pharmacology and Personalised…
Fish oil does not appear to improve asthma control in adolescents and young adults with uncontrolled asthma who are overweight or obese, according to new research published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society. In “Fish Oil Supplementation in Overweight/Obese Patients with Uncontrolled Asthma: A Randomized Trial,” Jason E. Lang, MD, MPH, and co-authors report that four grams…
Through genetic changes to the opioid receptor in mice, pharmacologists at Jena University Hospital have succeeded in almost completely suppressing the development of opioid tolerance. The pain-relieving effect actually improved and continued even when the drug was administered for longer periods. However, adverse effects such as respiratory depression and constipation, as well as withdrawal…
Utz Tillmann, director-general of the German chemical industry association VCI, deplores the rejection of the Brexit agreement by the British Parliament: “This vote brings us close to a no-deal Brexit. I very much hope that even in the current heated atmosphere the British politicians will still find a way to prevent a worst case scenario. London and Brussels should remain in dialogue now.”…
Rutgers researchers have found a way to reduce bleeding in patients following bariatric surgery. The study, which appeared in the journal Surgery for Obesity and Related Disorders, was conducted by Luigi Brunetti and Leonid Kagan at the Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy in collaboration with Ragui Sadek at Advanced Surgical and Bariatrics of New Jersey. More than 30 percent of adults in the…
The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson announced results from the ECLIPSE study demonstrating that Tremfya® (guselkumab) was superior to Cosentyx® (secukinumab)* in treating adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis for the primary endpoint assessed at week 48. Data from the multicentre, randomised, double-blind head-to-head Phase 3 study demonstrated that 84.5…
New research from the University of Adelaide’s Robinson Research Institute supports the need for dietary and lifestyle interventions before overweight and obese women become pregnant. The researchers have reported the results of a large study of birth outcomes in more than 500 overweight or obese women from three public maternity units in Adelaide, Australia in The Lancet Diabetes &…
Taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, or statins, as a preventive measure can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. A study by the University of Zurich now shows that this measure is recommended too often, as current guidelines fail to take into account the risks of side effects. Even healthy people who don't suffer from a cardiovascular disease are prescribed statins if they meet certain risk…
Although traditionally an imaging modality, ultrasound also has applications as a measurement tool. An innovative application is to assess ear infections. Otitis Media (OM), a middle ear infection, is the number one indication for antibiotic prescriptions for children and the leading cause for surgery. This problem is global. Nearly every child will suffer at least one middle ear infection severe…
The selection of a first-line chemotherapy drug to treat many types of cancer is often a clear-cut decision governed by standard-of-care protocols, but what drug should be used next if the first one fails? That’s where Georgia Institute of Technology researchers believe their new open source decision support tool could come in. Using machine learning to analyze RNA expression tied to…
To simulate the blood circulation and the organs of animals or humans, engineers from Fraunhofer in Dresden have developed a so-called "multi-organ chip". This microsystem from the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS Dresden has now received an "EARTO Innovation Award" in Brussels. The "lab-on-a-chip" will help industry to develop new drugs and…
The most common form of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) originated in Europe and spread to Asia, Africa and the Americas with European explorers and colonialists, reveals a new study led by UCL and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
Enthusiasm for an emerging digital health tool, the smart pill, is on the rise but researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have published a paper in the American Journal of Bioethics that cautions health care providers and policymakers to slow down when it comes to allowing this technology in patient care settings.