Tag: pharmaceuticals
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Emergency Room Opioid Prescriptions Jump in 2001-2010
14 March 2014. Medical researchers at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. found large increases in prescriptions for opioid pain-killers in U.S. hospital emergency rooms over the 2001-2010 decade. The team led by emergency medicine faculty Maryann Mazer-Amirshahi published its findings online yesterday in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine (paid subscription required). Mazer-Amirshahi and colleagues analyzed data…
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Virtual Fish in Development for Environmental Toxin Testing
13 March 2014. Researchers at Plymouth University in the U.K. and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca are developing a technique to gauge potential toxic effects of chemicals in rivers and oceans using cells from fish configured into a testing device. The three-year, £600,000 ($998,000) project of biologist Awadhesh Jha with colleagues from Plymouth and AstraZeneca is funded by U.K. science…
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Trial Underway to Test Mutation Fix for Cystic Fibrosis
12 March 2014. An early-stage clinical trial is underway testing the safety and chemical activity of a drug designed to correct a genetic mutation causing cystic fibrosis. The study, sponsored by N30 Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Boulder, Colorado — the drug’s inventor — aims to enroll up to 40 healthy adults. Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disease…
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Trial Shows Drug Efficacy with Chronic Kidney Disease
11 March 2014. An intermediate-stage clinical trial by La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company in San Diego shows patients with chronic kidney disease taking the company’s drug candidate succeeded in improving their kidney functions, compared to similar patients taking a placebo. However, the drug code-named GCS-100 appears effective only in lower rather than higher doses. The findings are scheduled…
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Start-Up Company Licenses University Stroke Drug Research
10 March 2014. Zocere Inc. in Albuquerque, New Mexico is licensing a neurological protein from University of New Mexico for development into a drug to protect ischemic stroke victims from extensive brain damage. Financial terms of the deal with the university’s technology transfer office were not disclosed. Nearly 800,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke each…
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Quality Assurance Techniques Proposed for Stem Cells
7 March 2014. Biomedical engineers at Harvard University proposed a scheme for assessing the quality of stem cells used in drug testing to assure they transform into the cells and tissue they purport to represent. The team from Harvard’s Disease Biophysics Group, led by Kevin it Parker, published its findings online yesterday in the journal…
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Early Trial Shows Gene Editing Potential to Treat HIV/AIDS
6 March 2014. Researchers from University of Pennsylvania, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the biotechnology company Sangamo BioSciences showed the company’s gene-editing technology could engineer the immune cells of HIV-positive patients to resist infection and decrease their viral loads. Results of the early-stage clinical trial led by Penn immunologist Carl June will be presented…
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Patent Granted for RNA-Interference to Treat Scar Tissue
5 March 2014. RXi Pharmaceuticals Corp., a biotechnology company in Westborough, Massachusetts, received a patent for its technology based on RNA-interference to treat skin scars, including surgical scars. Patent number 8,664,189 was awarded yesterday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to seven inventors and assigned to RXi Pharmaceuticals. RXi develops therapies with a technology…
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Pharma Alliance Extends Cancer Antibodies to Eye Disorders
4 March 2014. Santen Pharmaceutical Co. in Osaka, Japan is licensing antibodies developed as a cancer therapy by Tracon Pharmaceuticals in San Diego as treatments for eye diseases. Tracon is expected to earn $10 million in an upfront payment from Santen, as well as undisclosed milestone payments and royalties. Tracon develops biologic therapies for cancer,…
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FDA Fast-Tracks Depression Drug from Northwestern Spin-Off
Naurex Inc., a biotechnology company in Evanston, Illinois, says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted fast-track status for its drug candidate code-named GLYX-13 to treat depression. GLYX-13 is Naurex’s lead product for treatment of central nervous system disorders. The company develops drugs for diseases of the central nervous system that stimulate N-Methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors,…