Feature Channels: Pharmaceuticals

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A new microfluidic method for evaluating drugs commonly used for preventing heart attacks has found that while aspirin can prevent dangerous blood clots in some at-risk patients, it may not be effective in all patients with narrowed arteries. The study, which involved 14 human subjects, used a device that simulated blood flowing through narrowed coronary arteries to assess effects of anti-clotting drugs.

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By shifting evolution into reverse, it may be possible to use “green chemistry” to make a number of costly synthetic drugs as easily and cheaply as brewing beer.

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The Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) at the Université de Montréal (UdeM), in collaboration with the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital’s Quebec Leukemia Cell Bank, recently achieved a significant breakthrough thanks to the laboratory growth of leukemic stem cells, which will speed up the development of new cancer drugs.

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Scientists at Whitehead Institute have pinpointed a major mitochondrial pathway that imbues cancer cells with the ability to survive in low-glucose environments. By identifying cancer cells with defects in this pathway or with impaired glucose utilization, the scientists can predict which tumors will be sensitive to these anti-diabetic drugs known to inhibit this pathway.

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Patient requests for specific medications—including requests for brand-name drugs spurred by direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising—have a substantial impact on doctors' prescribing decisions, suggests a study in the April issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute have devised a greatly improved technique for making amino acids not found in nature. These “unnatural” amino acids traditionally have been very difficult to synthesize, but are sought after by the pharmaceutical industry for their potential medical uses.

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A study led by UC San Diego shows that emotions can spread in an online social network -- and that positive emotion spreads more than negative.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have developed a method for modifying organic molecules that significantly expands the possibilities for developing new pharmaceuticals and improving old ones.

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University of Utah chemists discovered how vibrations in chemical bonds can be used to predict chemical reactions and thus design better catalysts to speed reactions that make medicines, industrial products and new materials.

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Patrizia Cazzaniga had heard the horror stories about early treatments for hepatitis C – multiple daily pills and weekly shots for up to a year, side effects that could be debilitating, and a cure rate of only about 40 percent.

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Kinases are proteins that play vital roles in disease, but scientists have struggled to study how they interact in real time. The lab of UNC's Klaus Hahn has developed a new technique to make these interactions occur and then watch them in real time to reveal some underlying causes of metastasis.

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Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that FDA-approved anti-psychotic drugs possess tumor-killing activity against the most aggressive form of primary brain cancer, glioblastoma.

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Innovative methods of drug discovery don’t always take place in an academic laboratory. They may start there, but they can also happen in orbit aboard the International Space Station, as protein crystallization research from UAB is about to demonstrate once again.

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Total spending on prescription medications has been declining for several years, but that trend is expected to reverse and rise 3 to 5 percent for 2014, according to a new report by a team led by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomic Research.

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Washington University in St Louis chemist Timothy Wencewicz says we’ll stay ahead of antibiotic resistance only if we find drugs with new scaffolds, or core chemical structures. One promising candidate, an antibiotic made by a bacterium than infects plants, caught his attention because it contains an “enchanted ring,” the beta-lactam ring that is found in penicillin and the cephalosporins. In this case, however, it acts against a different target than the beta-lactams.

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Costs for medications are expected to rise by 3 - 5% in all health care settings in 2014, according to a report published by the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy (AJHP). This annual projection of drug expenditures helps hospitals and health-systems plan drug budgets, which are a significant operating expense.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have invented small-molecule folding probes that enable them to quantify functional, normally folded and disease-associated misfolded conformations (shapes) of a protein-of-interest in cells under different conditions.

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Journal of Drugs in Dermatology (JDD) today released a clinical study highlighting the efficacy of Triple Protection Factor Broad Spectrum Sunscreen, TPF 50, to prevent skin sun damage and Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (NMSC). In this head-to-head comparison study, investigators Enzo Emanuele MD, PhD, James M. Spencer MD, MS and Martin Braun MD found that TPF50 was more effective than both the main DNA repair and AO existing products.

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Whitehead Institute scientists have used a yeast cell-based drug screen to identify a class of molecules that target the amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide involved in Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

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Honey, that delectable condiment for breads and fruits, could be one sweet solution to the serious, ever-growing problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, researchers said here today. Their study was part of the 247th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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As some countries and companies roll out new rules to limit animal testing in pharmaceutical products designed for people, scientists are stepping in with a new way to test therapeutic drug candidates and determine drug safety and drug interactions — without using animals. The development of “chemosynthetic livers,” which could dramatically alter how drugs are made, was presented at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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Scientists reported today on at least five new experimental substances — based on a tiny protein found in cone snail venom — that could someday lead to the development of safe and effective oral medications for the treatment of chronic nerve pain. They say the substances could potentially be stronger than morphine, with fewer side effects and lower risk of abuse. They presented the research at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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A color-coded smart tag could tell consumers whether milk has turned sour or green beans have spoiled without opening the containers, say researchers. The tag, appearing on the packaging, also could be used to determine if medications and other perishable products were still active or fresh. The report was presented today at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society. A new video shows the tag in action.

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In response to drug-resistant “superbugs” that send millions of people to hospitals around the world, scientists are building tiny, “molecular drill bits” that kill bacteria by bursting through their protective cell walls. They presented some of the latest developments on these drill bits, better known to scientists as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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When cancer spreads, it becomes even more deadly. It moves with stealth and can go undetected for months or years. But a new technology that uses “nano-flares” has the potential to catch these tumor cells early. Today, at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, scientists presented the latest advances in nano-flare technology as it applies to the detection of metastatic breast cancer cells.

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Altheus Therapeutics, Inc., announced completion of dosing in ZA201, a double-blind, active-controlled Phase 2 trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of Zoenasa® Rectal Gel versus mesalamine enema in 120 patients with left-sided ulcerative colitis.

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“Many lipodystrophy patients have benefited from leptin therapy. While it is not a cure, leptin does help manage complications that can include diabetes, high blood lipids, and accumulation of fat in the liver,” said Dr. Abhimanyu Garg.

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A new preclinical study published online ahead of print in the Journal of Clinical Investigation from Penn Medicine researchers found that in many cases the root of resistance to BRAF inhibitors may lie in a never-before-seen autophagy mechanism induced by the BRAF inhibitors vermurafenib and dabrafenib.

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Opiate use triggers changes in the protein RGS9-2 in neurons in the brain's reward center. Repeated use affects analgesic relief and tolerance, as well as addiction.

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New research indicates that collecting and bleeding horseshoe crabs for biomedical purposes causes short-term changes in their behavior and physiology that could exacerbate the crabs’ population decline in parts of the east coast.

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A new study by scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute has uncovered a mechanism of drug resistance. This knowledge could have a major impact on the development of a pair of highly potent new antibiotic drug candidates.

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The angiogenesis inhibitor bevacizumab (Avastin) failed to increase overall survival (OS) or statistically significant progression-free survival (PFS) for glioblastoma patients in the frontline setting, according to a study led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

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Adding bevacizumab (Avastin) to standard chemotherapy and radiation treatment does not improve survival for patients newly diagnosed with the often deadly brain cancer glioblastoma, researchers report in the Feb. 20 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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A team of researchers at City of Hope has developed a screening assay that can quickly assess up to 1,536 compounds’ effect on estrogen activity in the body. The test can also evaluate whether chemicals act as inhibitors of aromatase, an enzyme linked to breast cancer that converts androgen to estrogen.

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If you're a doctor, choosing the best drug for a patient with schizophrenia isn't easy. Researchers at UNC School of Medicine are trying to help by better understanding the genetic underpinnings of drug side effects while creating a better way for geneticists to design experiments.

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MMIS, a leading provider of SaaS compliance solutions for the life science industry, introduces MediSpend® Validate, an easy-to-use, self-service tool, designed to help pharmaceutical and medical device companies validate all three Federal Open Payment Reports. MediSpend® Validate fills the gap in the current transparency process.

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University of Adelaide researchers have identified a key step for the future prevention of liver failure resulting from taking too much of the everyday painkiller acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol).

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A group of prominent healthcare experts including bioethicists, pharmacists, policymakers and cancer specialists have proposed concrete steps for preventing and managing a nightmare scenario that is becoming all too common: shortages of life-saving drugs.

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Global research overseen by and conducted at the Wayne State University School of Medicine will immediately change the treatment regimen of millions of multiple sclerosis patients around the world.

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/PRNewswire/ -- Altheus Therapeutics, Inc. announced the USPTO has allowed patent 8,629,127 B2 covering the oral pharmaceutical composition 5-ASA (5-aminosalicylic acid) and NAC (N-acetylcysteine). Combination therapy patents are uncommon and under-appreciated in the pharmaceutical industry because the Patent Office requires surprising, unexpected, or synergistic benefits from combining active ingredients into a single formulation. Altheus' success in procuring the strong and diverse patents for Zoenasa, including this most recent oral combination therapy patent, stems from rigorous studies demonstrating highly statistically significant synergy between Zoenasa's two components.

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St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have discovered a promising new class of antibiotics that could aid efforts to overcome drug-resistance in tuberculosis, a global killer.

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Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have laid the groundwork for a revolutionary new combination therapy for the treatment of advanced melanoma – melanoma that cannot be removed surgically or has spread to other areas of the body. The newly FDA-approved therapy, Mekinist (trametinib) in combination with Tafinlar (dabrafenib), is one of the biggest advancements in melanoma treatment in the past 30 years.

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New drug, idelalisib, shows efficacy in treating patients with relapsed indolent non-Hodgkin lymphom

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Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have developed a new genetic platform that allows efficient production of naturally occurring molecules, and have used it to produce a novel antibiotic compound.

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A new injectable material designed to deliver drug therapies and sensor technology to targeted areas within the human body is being developed by a Texas A&M University biomedical engineer who says the system can lock its payload in place and control how it is released.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have demonstrated the power of a new drug discovery technique, which allows them to find—relatively quickly and cheaply—antibodies that have a desired effect on cells.

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Addition of Bevacizumab to the existing standard of care was safe and showed promising overall results. The 2- and 3- year overall survival rates were 89.8 percent and 80.2 percent, respectively.

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Doctors commonly recommend drug holidays, or breaks, from certain osteoporosis drugs due to the risks associated with these treatments. Yet little has been known about the ideal duration of the holidays and how best to manage patients during this time.

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• A single low dose of lithium given to mice following acute kidney injury promotes kidney repair and accelerates the recovery of kidney function.

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In a prime example of finding new uses for older drugs, studies in zebrafish show that a 50-year-old antipsychotic medication called perphenazine can actively combat the cells of a difficult-to-treat form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The drug works by turning on a cancer-suppressing enzyme called PP2A and causing malignant tumor cells to self-destruct.