Eye Health News and Research

Latest Eye Health News and Research

First Edition: January 19, 2011

Today's headlines and news coverage offer details about the House health law repeal debate, which started yesterday.

19 Jan 2011

WHO Director-General opens executive board session with calls for reform

Kicking off a nine-day annual WHO executive board meeting Monday, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan called for the board to consider areas where the agency can redirect resources in a more targeted manner so as to achieve greater outcomes, Reuters reports.

19 Jan 2011

Regeneron, Bayer and SERI initiate new VEGF Trap-Eye Phase 3 clinical trial in myopic CNV

Regeneron and Bayer HealthCare announced initiation of a new Phase 3 clinical trial in collaboration with the Singapore Eye Research Institute investigating the efficacy and safety of VEGF Trap-Eye (aflibercept ophthalmic solution) in patients with choroidal neovascularisation (CNV) of the retina as a result of pathologic myopia.

18 Jan 2011

US Army awards $2.8M contract for project focusing on brain and eye injuries in military personnel

The Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University Center for Injury Biomechanics (www.cib.vt.edu) has been awarded a $2.8 million contract from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command for phase 2 of an overall project focusing on brain and eye injuries in military personnel. Specifically, blast induced brain trauma will be investigated using experimental and computational models.

14 Jan 2011

Unintended direct conflict between pharmaceutical marketing and public health

Drugs that pharmaceutical companies market most aggressively to physicians and patients tend to offer less benefit and more harm to most patients - a phenomenon described as the "inverse benefit law" in a paper from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

14 Jan 2011

12-HETE enzyme inhibition can prevent ischemic retinopathy: Study

The inhibition or removal of an enzyme may prevent or treat ischemic retinopathy by stalling growth of unwanted vessels in the retina, Medical College of Georgia researchers say.

14 Jan 2011

Study supports use of PRX as an anti-cataract agent

Scientists are reporting a scientific basis for the long-standing belief that a widely used non-prescription drug in China and certain other countries can prevent and treat cataracts, a clouding of the lens of the eye that is a leading cause of vision loss worldwide. Their study appears in Inorganic Chemistry, an ACS journal.

13 Jan 2011

Antibiotic treatment may be sufficient to overcome River Blindness

The team found that a bacterium inside the worm acts as a 'disguise' for the parasite, resulting in the immune system reacting to it in an ineffective way. The bacteria protect the worm from the body's natural defences, but once the bacteria are removed with antibiotics, the immune system responds appropriately, releasing cells, called eosinophils, that kill the worm.

13 Jan 2011

Surge in cataract surgeries fuels intraocular lens market to almost $1.4 billion

According to two new reports by iData Research, the leading global authority in medical device and pharmaceutical market research, growth in the use of optical coherence tomography (OCT) for the detection of ocular conditions will drive the U.S. diagnostic ophthalmic market to over $650 million by 2017.

12 Jan 2011

PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases features Inovio’s Chikungunya DNA vaccine

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leader in the development of novel therapeutic and preventive vaccines against cancers and infectious diseases, announced today the publication of a scientific paper highlighting positive results from Inovio's multi-antigen Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) DNA vaccine in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

12 Jan 2011

Herpes zoster vaccine reduces risk of developing shingles by 55%

Receiving the herpes zoster vaccine was associated with a 55 percent reduced risk of developing shingles, according to a Kaiser Permanente study of 300,000 people that appears in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

12 Jan 2011

Acne bacterium may also cause infections all over the body

A bacterium which causes acne and is commonly found on the skin, is now known to cause infections all over the body. Propionibacterium acnes (P. acnes)5 has been associated with infections of artificial joints and heart valves (endocarditis), as well as eye infections and chest infections - which are common at this time of year.

12 Jan 2011

Emerging Healthcare enters option agreement with OceanBASIS

Emerging Healthcare Solutions, Inc. announced today that it has entered into an option agreement with OceanBASIS, a German company specializing in stem-cell and marine-collagen technologies and products.

12 Jan 2011

TearLab's Osmolarity test made available at point-of-care

TearLab Corporation and COLA, a private, non-profit clinical laboratory education, consultation and accreditation organization, announced today that they have partnered to help make the TearLab™ Osmolarity System available in the U.S. at the point-of-care.

11 Jan 2011

STAAR Surgical anticipates fourth quarter revenue to exceed $14.2 million

STAAR Surgical Company, a leading developer, manufacturer and marketer of minimally invasive ophthalmic products, today announced that it expects revenue for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2010 to exceed $14.2 million. Revenues for the full year were approximately $55 million, a 7% increase over 2009 revenues, driven by an increase of approximately 10% in revenues from the core ICL and IOL product lines.

11 Jan 2011

Nutriceuticals may restore age-related vision loss

While age-related vision loss of catastrophic proportions is predicted in coming decades, rising from 17 million patients today to 55 million by the year 2050, it's possible this catastrophe could be averted and lost vision even restored using molecular medicine.

11 Jan 2011

Ifa Systems acquires inoveon

ifa Systems AG, the global leader for IT solutions in ophthalmology based in Cologne, Germany, announced the acquisition of inoveon Corporation, proven experts in detection, staging, and monitoring of diabetic retinopathy and macular edema.

10 Jan 2011

Women’s tears dampen men’s libido: Study

New research confirms an age old fear – men are truly turned off if the woman sheds tears. The researchers found that men who smelled the tears of weeping women produced less testosterone and found female faces less arousing.

10 Jan 2011

ACADIA raises $15 million through private placement

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biopharmaceutical company utilizing innovative technology to fuel drug discovery and clinical development of novel treatments for central nervous system disorders, today announced that it has entered into a securities purchase agreement for a private placement financing with a select group of institutional investors, including New Enterprise Associates and Venrock.

10 Jan 2011

Neuroptix announces closing of $4 million Series C funding round

Neuroptix Corporation, a leading innovator in the early detection of Alzheimer's Disease through a non-invasive eye test, today announced that it has closed the first approximately $4 Million tranche of a Series C funding round, as the company continues clinical development of its diagnostic platform.

10 Jan 2011