Feature Channels: Pharmaceuticals

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Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals and the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) announce a joint request for proposals for the 2022 ADDF-Harrington Scholar Award. The ADDF-Harrington Scholar Award is designed to accelerate the translation of innovative research that could treat, prevent, or slow Alzheimer's disease or related dementias. The Request for Proposal (RFP) is open to academic investigators at accredited medical centers, research institutions, and universities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Researchers working on drug development programs that are relevant to, but not presently focused on, the Alzheimer’s field are also encouraged to apply. This award provides a combination of financial support and expert drug development guidance to provide the best chance to move research beyond the bench to the bedside.

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Consortium of Hackensack Meridian CDI, Rockefeller University, Columbia University, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Rutgers University, Merck, Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, Inc., and Aligos Therapeutics to combine expertise to ‘accelerate’ new breakthroughs

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New UCLA research published in The Journal of Physiology points to a novel treatment for respiratory depression associated with opioid use that administers electrical pulses to the back of the neck, helping patients regain respiratory control following high dosage opioid use. This could offer an alternative to pharmacological treatments, which can cause withdrawal symptoms, heart problems and can negatively affect the central nervous system.

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A decade-long effort to reduce medication risks for nursing home residents with dementia has paid off in some ways – but produced unintended consequences that now need addressing, new research shows.

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This special edition features upcoming oral presentations by MD Anderson researchers at the 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting focused on quality improvement, health services research, new treatments for skin cancers, and symptoms and survivorship advances. More information on ASCO content from MD Anderson can be found at MDAnderson.org/ASCO.

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Children who were prescribed antibiotics inappropriately were more likely to develop complications such as diarrhea and skin rashes than children who were treated according to medical guidelines, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and The Pew Charitable Trusts. This misuse of antibiotics resulted in at least $74 million in excess health-care costs in the U.S. in 2017.

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Men taking either of the two most common oral medications for advanced prostate cancer who had also undergone hormone therapy to treat their disease were at higher risk of serious metabolic or cardiovascular issues than patients who were only receiving hormone therapy, Michigan Medicine researchers found.

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In comments submitted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) urged the agency to address Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) business practices that drive up costs and reduce access for the 54 million Americans living with rheumatic disease.

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Naomi Matsuura, of the University of Toronto, and her team are adapting microbubbles to become more potent tools for cancer therapy. By shrinking the bubbles and directly loading them with anti-cancer drugs, the bubbles can lower the dose of free drug that is injected and diffuses into nontumor tissue in the body. This results in more targeted treatment and fewer side effects for the patient. Matsuura will discuss her team's results in her presentation, "Ultrasound-stimulated, drug-loaded bubbles for cancer therapy," as part of the 182nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel. The session will take place May 24 at 11:30 a.m. Eastern U.S.

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Pain medicine practitioners should take measures to reduce the use of iodinated contrast medium in interventional pain procedures due to the current shortage of iohexol. Clinicians are advised to consider using alternate image guidance, such as ultrasound, delaying non-urgent procedures, and using alternative contrast agents, according to guidance just released by ASRA Pain Medicine.

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The drug gabapentin, currently prescribed to control seizures and reduce nerve pain, may enhance recovery of movement after a stroke by helping neurons on the undamaged side of the brain take up the signaling work of lost cells, new research in mice suggests.

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The bottom of the ocean is full of mysteries but scientists have recently uncovered one of its best-kept secrets. For 25 years, drug hunters have been searching for the source of a natural chemical that had shown promise in initial studies for treating cancer. Now, researchers at University of Utah Health report that easy-to-find soft corals make the elusive compound.

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People with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) develop tumors on nerves throughout their bodies. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that nerve cells with the mutation that causes NF1 are hyperexcitable and that suppressing this hyperactivity with the epilepsy drug lamotrigine stops tumor growth in mice.

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Recent disruptions in a pharmaceutical supply chain have impacted the global availability of GE Healthcare Omnipaque™ iohexol iodinated contrast media (ICM) for radiologic examinations. A new Special Report published in the journal Radiology provides consensus recommendations for dealing with the shortage of ICM in the near term and discusses long-term issues and potential solutions to supply chain problems.

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A commonly used blood pressure medication may help improve measures of frailty in prefrail older adults, according to a new study by researchers with UTHealth Houston. The study was published in The Journals of Gerontology.

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Brensocatib did not improve the clinical status of patients hospitalized with severe SARS-CoV-2 infection in the double-blind randomized, placebo-controlled STOP-COVID19 multicenter clinical trial, according to research published at the ATS 2022 international conference.

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A study by UC Davis and UC San Francisco identified multiple barriers that family physicians navigate to provide abortion services to their patients. The barriers include lack of physician training and federal, state and institutional restrictions on providing medication abortion.

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Patients with severe COVID-19 who were given imatinib had lower mortality rates at 90-day follow-up, according to research published at the ATS 2022 international conference.

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Avacopan was better than prednisone in reducing respiratory as well as ear, nose and throat (ENT) involvement and enabled reduced glucocorticoid use in ANCA-associated vasculitis patients participating in the phase 3 ADVOCATE trial. Study results were published at the ATS 2022 international conference. The study was a subgroup analysis of results from the larger trial, which led to FDA approval of avacopan.

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IMpower010 was a randomized, multicenter, open-label, phase 3 study done at 227 sites in 22 countries and regions.

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A greater proportion of patients with severe, uncontrolled asthma had more significant clinical responses to tezepelumab than placebo, according to research published at the ATS 2022 international conference. The study showed that nearly half of those enrolled achieved complete response to treatment across measures of exacerbation reduction, asthma control, lung function, and clinician assessment.

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A new study by Indiana University researchers explored people’s beliefs about overdose and naloxone as a step to understanding why some communities are not using the reversal medication.

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E-cigarette makers are adding potentially dangerous levels of the synthetic cooling agents WS-3 and WS-23 to disposable e-cigarettes and e-cigarette refills sold in the U.S., according to research published at the ATS 2022 international conference.

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UC San Diego study shows suicide rates were higher in pharmacists than in the general population between 2003 and 2018, with job problems being the most significant feature associated with the suicides.

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The more antibiotics prescribed to patients 60 and older, the more likely they were to develop inflammatory bowel disease, suggesting antibiotic use could explain some of the growth in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis in older people, according to a review of 2.3 million patient records in a study selected for presentation at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2022.

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Hospices often prescribe medicines like Xanax, Haldol and Seroquel to patients to ease end-of-life symptoms, but a new study shows very wide variation in the chances patients will get these drugs.

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In early research led by the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center, the oral medication zanubrutinib was found to help most patients with a slow-growing type of cancer known as marginal zone lymphoma.

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The cerebral cortex is thought to be the seat of conscious processing in the brain.

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Research from the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center could provide a new approach to treating an aggressive form of breast cancer. A study led by Duxin Sun, Ph.D., found that targeting the immune microenvironment in lymph nodes and tumors simultaneously led to long-term tumor remission in mice models of metastatic triple negative breast cancer.

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The first bladder cancer drug targeting a cancer-driving gene mutation has been used relatively little despite its clear efficacy in a clinical trial, suggests a JAMA Oncology study led by the University of Pennsylvania. Researchers analyzed a large, nationwide database of cancer cases and found that bladder cancer patients potentially eligible for erdafitinib (Balversa) treatment, fewer than half had a record of being tested for the relevant gene mutation. Of those who were tested and found to have the mutation, fewer than half received the treatment.

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A new study suggests that antidepressant use by mothers during the first trimester of pregnancy does not increase the chances of epilepsy and seizures in babies. The research is published in the May 11, 2022, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Researchers note that health care providers are now able to add to their armamentarium against COVID-19 their prescription of this new antiviral drug for high-risk, newly-infected patients as soon as possible following diagnosis or within five days of the onset of symptoms.

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Researchers in the Center of Excellence for Evolutionary Therapy at Moffitt Cancer Center have been investigating an alternative treatment approach called adaptive therapy that focuses on maintaining disease control instead of complete tumor cell elimination. In a new study published in Communications Medicine, the researchers used mathematical modeling to reveal that the spatial organization of a tumor is an important factor that governs how cells compete with one another and the effectiveness of adaptive therapy.

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Pfizer has NOT declared their COVID vaccines unsafe for pregnancy and breastfeeding women, despite misleading claims on social media, nor have they said that the real efficacy rate for their vaccine (COMIRNATY) is 12 percent.

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Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) announced Grace Kuo, Ph.D., Pharm.D., has been named dean of the Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy.