Tag: pharmaceuticals
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Early Trial Shows Arthritis Drug Can Treat Dry Eye Disease
Researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear hospital, Brigham and Women’s hospital, and Harvard Medical School, found eye drops made of anakinra, a biologic agent to treat arthritis, could safely reduce symptoms associated with dry eye disease. The team led by Mass Eye and Ear ophthalmologist and immunologist Reza Dana published its findings yesterday in the…
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Researcher Studies, Commercializes Nanoscale Drug Delivery
A researcher at University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada developed a process of delivering drugs to targeted locations in the body with nanoscale polymer capsules, and has received a patent for that process. Afsaneh Lavasanifar, a professor in Alberta’s pharmacy school, also started a company in 2010 to take her process to market. Lavasanifar devised…
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Biotech Wins Fox Grant for Parkinson’s Drug Delivery Test
Intec Pharma, a biotechnology company in Jerusalem, Israel, received a $705,000 grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for a clinical trial of its system to deliver the drug combination carbidopa and levodopa to treat Parkinson’s disease. The company expects to complete the test in the first quarter of 2014. Intec Pharma developed an oral…
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GlaxoSmithKline Crowdsourcing Bioelectronic Research Ideas
The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is seeking research ideas from the global scientific community to better understand the body’s neural signaling mechanisms to discover therapies that harness these mechanisms. The company is also mounting a separate competition through InnoCentive to identify a specific disease to serve as a proof-of-principle test for potential neural signaling solutions.…
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One in Five Seniors Found Taking High Risk Medications
A study by public health researchers at Brown University in Providence finds about one in five older citizens in the U.S. are taking medications considered potentially harmful to people in that age group. Danya Qato, a practicing pharmacist and doctoral candidate, with Amal Trivedi, a general internist and health services researcher at Brown, published their…
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Mayo CEO: Government Needs to Fund Health Care Innovation
John Noseworthy, president and CEO of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, told an audience today that the U.S. government needs to fund scientific discovery to maintain U.S. health care quality and affordability, especially funding for National Institutes of Health (NIH). Noseworthy made his remarks in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington,…
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Gates Foundation Funds, Invests in Tropical Disease Research
Anacor Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company in Palo Alto, California, will receive an award of nearly $18 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to discover drug candidates for tropical worm diseases and tuberculosis. Anacor says the Gates Foundation will also invest $5 million in the company’s common stock. Anacor develops small molecule therapies using…
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Trial to Test Immunotherapy with Children’s Solid Tumors
Researchers at hospitals and universities in Philadelphia and Salt Lake City will test T-cell immunotherapy strategies in children with neuroblastoma, a solid tumor cancer that occurs in children. The $550,000 grant from the ACT FAST (Adoptive Cell Therapy For Adolescent/pediatric Solid Tumors) initiative funding the trial is provided by three foundations: Solving Kids’ Cancer, the…
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Phila Children’s Hospital Joins Pfizer Research Network
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is joining an academic research network of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. in New York, with selection of specific joint projects expected in July 2013. Financial and intellectual property aspects of the collaboration were not disclosed. Researchers from Children’s Hospital will take part in Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation network, focusing…
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Common Virus Fortifies Stem Cells, Improves Their Survival
Medical researchers at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and others devised a method for improving the survival of stem cells in the body, making them more effective therapeutic agents. The team led by Graca Almeida-Porada of Wake Forest’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine published their findings last week in the online journal PLoS One.…