Month: April 2016
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Trial Shows Pain Drug Effective as Heroin Treatment
7 April 2016. A clinical trial in Canada shows a drug already in use for chronic pain can serve as a substitute maintenance treatment for people addicted to heroin. The findings of the trial, conducted by University of British Columbia in Vancouver and other institutions in Canada, appear 6 April in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.…
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$500K Challenge Seeks Mood Research Ideas with iPhone
Update, 20 July 2016. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sponsoring the Mood Challenge announced the competition’s 5 semi-finalists: – Aware Study, to measure mood and posttraumatic stress symptoms among the millions of adults living with PTSD. – BiAffect, a system for understanding mood and neurocognitive functioning in bipolar disorder using keystroke dynamics, such as typing…
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Stem Cell Biotech Licensing Blood Vessel Repair Technology
6 April 2016. Cellular Dynamics International, a developer of regenerative treatments from stem cells, is licensing university research that repairs blood vessels in people with peripheral artery disease. Financial aspects of the deal between Indiana University and Cellular Dynamics, a subsidiary of FujiFilm in Madison, Wisconsin, were not disclosed. Cellular Dynamics designs and generates induced…
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Study to Test Increasing Ethnic Genetic Disease Diversity
5 April 2016. The personal genetics company 23andMe is beginning a study to test techniques for increasing the diversity of disease-causing genetic variations, which now overwhelmingly favor Europeans. The study is funded by a $260,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant from National Institutes of Health. The study aims to provide better tools for genetics researchers…
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Stem Cells Shown to Improve Heart Failure Health Outcomes
5 April 2016. Results from a clinical trial show a new therapy for heart failure using patients’ own blood-forming stem cells reduces worsening symptoms, hospitalizations, and deaths. Findings of the study testing the treatments developed by biopharmaceutical company Vericel Corp., which funded the trial, appear in today’s issue of the journal The Lancet (paid subscription…
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Pharmacy Interventions Shown to Boost Meds Adherence
4 April 2016. Actions by community pharmacists and other customer-assistance programs at Walgreens pharmacies were shown to improve customers’ adherence to medications and reduce their health care costs. Results of the study conducted by health analysts at Walgreens appear in the 1 April issue of the journalĀ Population Health Management. The research team led by Michael…
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Intrexon Spin-Off Developing Type 1 Diabetes Therapy
4 April 2016. A new subsidiary of the synthetic biology company Intrexon Corp. is creating a pill for people with type 1 diabetes to stop the disease’s damage in its early stages. The enterprise, known as Intrexon T1D Partners LLC, is a joint venture between Intrexon, in Germantown, Maryland, and White Rock Capital Partners a…
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Gene-Editing Therapy Advances for Rare Immune Disorder
1 April 2016. A key committee of the European Medicines Agency recommends approval of treatments for a rare children’s immune disease that uses edited genes as therapy. The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, or CHMP, of the European Medicines Agency at its March 2016 meeting recommended approving Strimvelis by GlaxoSmithKline to treat adenosine-deaminase-deficient…
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On-Demand Pharma Manufacturing System Developed
1 April 2016. Chemical engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology created a compact manufacturing system that produces small quantities of pharmaceuticals as needed. The system developed in the MIT labs of Alan Myerson, Klavs Jensen, and Timothy Jamison is described in the 31 March issue of the journal Science (paid subscription required). Making drugs at…