Category: Regulations
-
Pharmas to Collaborate on Improving Clinical Trial Process
Ten of the world’s larger pharmaceutical companies formed a non-profit organization to improve the way clinical drug studies, a major time and financial expense, are conducted. Abbott, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Genentech (a division of the Roche Group), and Sanofi will take part in the…
-
DNA Bar Codes Help Authenticate Natural Health Products
Researchers at University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada found DNA identification successfully verified a vast majority of natural health products sold in two North American cities. The study led by Mehrdad Hajibabaei, in Guelph’s integrative biology department and Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, appears online in the journal Food Research International (paid subscription required). Hajibabaei says…
-
Protections Added to Voice Authentication Systems
Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh devised additional safeguards for voice authentication systems that produce coded identifiers from a voice print comparable to a password. Bhiksha Raj, a professor in Carnegie Mellon’s Language Technologies Institute, with Manas Pathak, a recent Ph.D. graduate, and Isabel Trancoso of INESC-ID in Lisbon, Portugal, will discuss the…
-
Prototype Net-Zero Energy Home Being Tested
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, unveiled this week a two-story suburban-style home to demonstrate that a family of four can generate as much energy as it uses in a year. The year-long pilot is expected to improve testing methods for residential energy efficiency and develop…
-
FDA Approves Oral Drug for Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved yesterday teriflunomide, a tablet taken once a day for the treatment of adults with relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis. The drug, marketed under the name Aubagio, was developed by the Genzyme division of the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease of the…
-
Report: Multiple Strategies Help Patients Take Medicines
A review of past studies of patients’ behavior in taking prescribed medicines shows a number of approaches and methods can encourage patients to adhere to their medication regimens. The report from RTI International and the Evidence-based Practice Center at University of North Carolina, and funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, appears online…
-
Nanoscale Bar Codes Developed to Combat Counterfeiting
Engineers and chemists at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT) in Rapid City and University of South Dakota in Vermillion devised invisible, nanoscale high-density bar codes that can authenticate paper documents and other solid objects. The team published its findings in the journal Nanotechnology, published by Institute of Physics (free registration required). The…
-
Trial Shows Vaccine Effective Against Most Dengue Viruses
A clinical trial by researchers from the pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur, with clinicians and public health officers from Thailand, shows a candidate vaccine to prevent the tropical disease dengue fever was effective against three of the four dengue viruses. The findings from the trial, funded by the Dengue Vaccine Initiative, appear online in the journal…
-
Nanotech Process Developed to Detect Heavy Metal Pollution
Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois developed a nanoscale process to test for heavy metals such as mercury and cadmium in water and fish. Their findings appear onlne in the journal Nature Materials (paid subscription required). The process created by EPFL nanomaterials scientist Francesco Stellacci (pictured…
-
Tattoo Infections Traced to Bacteria in Premixed Ink
Medical researchers and clinicians at University of Rochester with public health officials from local, state, and federal agencies discovered a manufactured tattoo ink caused rashes from bacterial infections among tattoo customers in Rochester, New York. The results of their investigation appear online in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study reports 19 cases in…