Health

Health AstraZeneca's immunotherapy drug Imfinzi has been approved in Europe for use in lung cancer patients with inoperable disease that had advanced locally but not spread widely around the body, the drugmaker said on Monday. 24 Sep 2018 11:40PM Bookmark LONDON: AstraZeneca's immunotherapy drug Imfinzi has been approved in Europe for use in lung cancer patients with inoperable disease that had advanced locally but not spread widely around the body, the drugmaker said on Monday.The green light from the European Commission had been expected following a positive recommendation from experts at the European Medicines Agency in July.The European approval is for patients whose tumors express a biomarker known as PD-L1 on 1 percent or more of tumor cells and whose disease has not progressed following platinum-based chemotherapy and radiation therapy.(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Adrian Croft) … [Read more...] about EU approves AstraZeneca immunotherapy drug for lung cancer

LONDON: Scientists have succeeded in wiping out a population of caged mosquitoes in laboratory experiments using a type of genetic engineering known as a gene drive, which spread a modification blocking female reproduction.The researchers, whose work was published on Monday in the journal Nature Biotechnology, managed to eliminate the population in less than 11 generations, suggesting the technique could in future be used to control the spread of malaria, a parasitic disease carried by Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes."It will still be at least five to 10 years before we consider testing any mosquitoes with gene drive in the wild, but now we have some encouraging proof that we're on the right path," said Andrea Crisanti, a professor at Imperial College London who co-led the work.The results mark the first time this technology has been able to completely suppress a population. The hope is that in future, mosquitoes carrying a gene drive could be released, spreading female infertility within … [Read more...] about Malaria mosquitoes wiped out in lab trials of gene drive technique

(Reuters Health) - Doctors in Kentucky reported Monday that two of four paralyzed patients were able to walk again with limited assistance after treatment with electrical stimulation to the portion of the spinal cord cut off from the brain, combined with intense physical therapy.The technique is still experimental and relies in part on implantation of electrodes that seem to prime the largely-dormant part of the spinal cord to listen to faintly-echoed commands by the brain to walk."We all walk independent of the brain in a sense because the human spinal circuitry is the primary controller of walking," said Susan Harkema, a leader of the team from the University of Louisville whose report appears online in The New England Journal of Medicine.Below the level of a spinal cord injury, hundreds of thousands of nerve cells "are still alive and healthy and still connected in a network that controls movement" and allows walking with minimal input from the brain, she told Reuters Health in a … [Read more...] about Electrode treatment, physical therapy combination lets two paralyzed people walk again

LONDON: Despite actions taken by companies to prepare for Brexit, there is still a risk of serious supply disruptions for 39 medicines as a result of Britain's departure from the European Union, the bloc's drugs regulator said on Monday.While that is an improvement on the situation in July, when the European Medicines Agency warned about supply problems for 108 products, the watchdog said companies responsible for the remaining drugs needed to "step up their planning now".Of the outstanding products, 25 are human medicines and 14 are veterinary.More than 2,600 drugs have some stage of manufacture in Britain and 45 million patient packs are supplied from the United Kingdom to other European countries each month, while another 37 million flow in the opposite direction, industry figures show.To ensure that EU drug marketing authorizations remain valid after Brexit, companies are having to adapt their supply chains and legal arrangements to have certain operations based in an EU … [Read more...] about Despite Brexit planning, EMA fears disruption for 39 medicines

REUTERS: Endo International Plc on Monday said it would stay its lawsuit against the U.S. Food And Drug Administration until the end of the year after the FDA made new commitments on the regulation surrounding the active ingredient in its blood pressure medicine Vasostrict.Endo's lawsuit, filed by its subsidiaries in a district court in Columbia last year, accused the agency of improperly authorizing the bulk compounding of hundreds of drugs, including "essentially a copy" of Vasostrict.Bulk compounding, whereby facilities are able to prepare tailored doses of drugs for individual patients, has become a widespread practice in the United States.Last month, the FDA proposed excluding three substances from a list of ingredients that could be used to manufacture compounded medications in bulk, including vasopressin, the active ingredient in Vasostrict.The action was the first time the health regulator pushed to exclude any substance that may be used to bulk-produce compounded drugs that do … [Read more...] about Endo puts Vasostrict case against US FDA on hold