Tag: clinical trials
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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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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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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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Foundation Supporting ALS Progression Model Study
31 March 2016. A study to validate computer models that predict progression and survival of patients with ALS is underway by a bioinformatics company and biopharmaceutical developer. The 3-year project is funded by a grant of nearly $500,000 from ALS Association in Washington, D.C. ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease,…
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Drug Shown Effective With Stubborn Rheumatoid Arthritis
31 March 2016. A late-stage clinical trial shows a small-molecule drug reduces pain and inflammation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, who stopped responding to earlier protein treatments. A report of the study testing the drug baricitinib, made by Eli Lilly & Company that sponsored the trial, appears in today’s issue of New England Journal of…
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Nanoparticles Shown to Target Tumors, Avoid Adjacent Cells
22 March 2016. A small-scale clinical trial shows cancer drugs formulated into nanoparticles accumulate in solid tumors in humans, while avoiding adjacent healthy tissue. The team from California Institute of Technology in Pasadena published its findings yesterday (21 March) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The CalTech team, led by chemical engineering…
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Clinical Trial Advances Dengue Vaccine Candidate
17 March 2016. A small-scale clinical trial testing an experimental vaccine with people given live dengue viruses shows the vaccine is effective in preventing dengue infections. The team from Johns Hopkins University and University of Vermont published its findings in yesterday’s (16 March) issue of Science Translational Medicine; paid subscription required. The vaccine, developed by…
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Roche Licensing Biotech Immunotherapies in $1B Deal
15 March 2016. The biotechnology company Blueprint Medicines, a developer of cancer treatments based on a patient’s precise genomic make-up, is partnering with the pharmaceutical company Roche on cancer immunotherapies. The agreement gives Roche options to license up to 5 small-molecule, or low molecular-weight therapies, in a deal that could bring Blueprint more than $1…
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Biomarker Profiles Shown to Improve Ovarian Cancer Survival
14 March 2016. A clinical trial of people with ovarian cancer shows patients receiving treatments matching their particular molecular profiles survived an average of 9 months longer than those receiving one or more drugs not matching their biomarkers. Results of the study, conducted by Caris Life Sciences at 6 cancer care hospitals in the U.S.…
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Allergy Drug Shown to Allow Eating Small Peanut Amounts
7 March 2016. A new drug was shown in a clinical trial to allow most children and teens with food allergies to eat peanuts in small quantities. The results of the intermediate-stage trial were reported yesterday at the annual meeting of American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in Los Angeles. Allergies to peanuts and other…