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Is the FDA too influenced by big pharma?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) historically sound reputation could be in jeopardy due to it's possibly too close relationship with the major pharmaceutical companies.

12 Dec 2005

Physicians slow to prescribe newer heart drugs

An analysis of the treatment received by more than 100,000 heart patients has shown that physicians' prescription practices for drugs proven effective for treating heart disease has shown steady improvement over the past three years, cardiologists at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) have concluded.

7 Dec 2005

Pharmacists in disagreement over law on morning-after pill

A recent survey of pharmacists in the United States has revealed that as many as 39 percent of respondents are against state laws that would require them to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception known as the morning-after pill.

6 Dec 2005

Mesoblast recruits first patients for pilot clinical trials

Australia's adult stem cell company, Mesoblast Limited, today announced that several patients have now been formally recruited for its Pilot Clinical Trials.

6 Dec 2005

Herceptin - can healthcare afford this expensive drug?

New research into the cost of using the breast cancer drug Herceptin warns that healthcare authorities and the organisations advising them should not rush to prescribe it for early breast cancer without working out extremely carefully the budget implications and cost-effectiveness of the drug.

2 Dec 2005

New anthrax antibody

A new anthrax antibody engineered by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin protects and defends against inhalation anthrax without the use of antibiotics and other more expensive antibodies.

2 Dec 2005

Warning that breast cancer drug can harm fetus

Health Canada along with drug company Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada, have issued a warning concerning the drug Femara (letrozole), which is used to treat breast cancer in women who are postmenopausal.

30 Nov 2005

Let's all have a go - Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan to make their own Tamiflu

Drug giant Roche, the makers of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, say that both Thailand and the Philippines are free to begin making their own versions of the drug.

29 Nov 2005

Drug partners in fight against AIDS say measles shot could be the answer!

Major drug company GlaxoSmithKline is hoping to develop an experimental AIDS vaccine by "piggy-backing" on a shot against measles.

29 Nov 2005

Indonesia to produce bird flu vaccine with help from U.S. company

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says the authorities there will cooperate with the U.S.-based Baxter International to produce human vaccines for the H5N1 bird flu virus.

28 Nov 2005

Taiwan to produce its own version of Tamiflu

A government panel in Taiwan has decided that the anti bird flu drug Tamiflu can be produced there without permission from the Swiss drug maker Roche AG, if supplies of the medicine run out.

28 Nov 2005

Indonesia to make Tamiflu

The Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari has announced that the Ministry of Health has been given special rights from drug company Roche, maker of the bird flu drug Tamiflu, to produce the drug.

28 Nov 2005

Warning labels on high-risk drugs ignored by doctors

In a survey of approximately 930,000 ambulatory care patients, researchers from the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention (of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care) and colleagues found that 42 percent received prescriptions for drugs with Black Box Warnings (BBW), the Food and Drug Administration's strongest label for high-risk medication.

21 Nov 2005

Warnings on popular asthma drug could damage drug giant

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is recommending new restrictions on the asthma drug Advair.

21 Nov 2005

The Medicare Drug Benefit: A Prescription for Confusion

If many seniors are scratching their heads about the new Medicare prescription drug plan, so are the experts.

20 Nov 2005

Alarming deaths of Tamiflu patients - FDA to investigate

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration are investigating the deaths of 12 children in Japan who took Roche's flu-fighting drug Tamiflu.

20 Nov 2005

Cannabis-based medicine given go-ahead to treat MS patients

Sufferers in the UK from multiple sclerosis and possibly rheumatoid arthritis, will welcome the news that they will soon be able to obtain an unlicensed, cannabis-based medicine on prescription to treat their illness.

16 Nov 2005

Row over Plan B unearths suspicion of political manipulation

Congressional investigators are saying there is a suspicion that senior U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials may have decided to reject a politically sensitive request for over-the-counter sales of a "morning-after" contraceptive months before agency scientists finished reviewing the scientific data.

16 Nov 2005

New drug far more effective in stopping smokers lighting up

An experimental smoking cessation drug by Pfizer apparently gives smokers better odds at kicking the habit.

16 Nov 2005

Torcetrapib - Lipitor drug combo shows promise

According to drug company Pfizer the results of two mid-stage studies on its experimental cholesterol drug torcetrapib, combined with its cholesterol drug Lipitor, were so promising that the company will continue into the final stage.

15 Nov 2005