Feature Channels: Pharmaceuticals

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An HIV drug that redirects immune cell traffic significantly reduces the incidence of a dangerous complication that often follows bone marrow transplants for blood cancer patients, according to research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania that will be published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The findings represent a new tactic for the prevention of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), which afflicts up to 70 percent of transplant patients and is a leading cause of deaths associated with the treatment.

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The new drug, SynriamTM, is considered a breakthrough, as traditional drugs are proving increasingly ineffective against the deadly malarial parasite because of acquired resistance to available drugs. Taken as a tablet once a day for three days, it’s more effective, cheaper, has fewer side effects and does not have to be taken with food.

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A new study by researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center Orlando finds that Tolfenamic acid (TA), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), commonly used to relieve pain, inflammation and migraines has now been found to reduce esophageal tumors.

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A new approach to testing medical treatment options could ensure that more patients get the most beneficial treatment for them – but still yield valuable research results that stand up to scientific scrutiny.

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A drug developed to treat certain strains of cystic fibrosis may be useful in the treatment of COPD. Researchers at UAB showed that a new drug recently approved by the FDA called ivacaftor, normalized airway hydration and mucus clearance in COPD patients.

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A new cancer drug with remarkably few side effects is dramatically improving survival in Hodgkin lymphoma patients who fail other treatments and are nearly out of options.

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Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have conducted a clinical trial aimed at preventing graft vs. host disease (GVHD) in patients who have received hematopoietic (blood) cell transplants (HCT). The study, comparing the drug tacrolimus (TAC) in combination with either methotrexate (MTX ) or sirolimus (SIR), found that the sirolimus/tacrolimus (SIR/TAC) combination was more effective in preventing grades II-IV acute GVHD and moderate-severe chronic GVHD after allogeneic blood cell transplantation.

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The Intellectual Property & Science division of Thomson Reuters unveiled Cortellis for Regulatory Intelligence at the DIA 2012 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia today. This new offering is the next generation of Thomson Reuters IDRAC, the company's best-in-class regulatory intelligence tool that provides pharmaceutical professionals with reliable and accurate global regulatory information to gain competitive advantage and minimize regulatory risks.

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An experimental medication safely increases muscle strength and physical functioning among cancer patients with low testosterone levels, a new drug study finds. The results will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society’s 94th Annual Meeting in Houston.

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Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at six other institutions have recently tested a treatment for patients with myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS, a blood-related malignancy that involves the ineffective production of blood cells, leaving patients anemic and in need of frequent blood transfusions. Because the body has no natural means to reduce iron that accumulates from repeated transfusions, patients’ organs can become iron overloaded, leading to heart failure, liver injury, susceptibility to infection, and other complications. Bone marrow failure and conversion to acute leukemia may occur in patients with MDS, necessitating bone marrow transplantation. The disease can be caused by chemotherapy and radiation treatment for cancer.

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Jiayuh Lin, PhD, and colleagues at Nationwide Children’s Hospital have developed a drug to target the most common cancerous bone tumor in children, osteosarcoma, using a version of the FDA-approved drug, Celebrex. The team will soon begin testing the drug using human and canine tumor cell lines thanks to a two-year, $200,000 grant from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer.

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Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered an association between a commonly prescribed blood pressure drug, Olmesartan, and severe gastrointestinal issues such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss and electrolyte abnormalities -- symptoms common among those who have celiac disease. The findings are published online today in the medical journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

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A new delivery method for levodopa/carbidopa, a common dual-drug Parkinson’s disease (PD) regimen, significantly improved the duration of the drugs’ effectiveness in people with advanced PD.

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Researchers at the U-M reveal that digoxin, the active ingredient in Foxglove, can enhance the body’s own protective mechanism against high blood pressure and heart failure.

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Drug safety warnings issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) don't always lead to targeted changes in the way medications are prescribed and used, reports a study in the June issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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TeraDiscoveries, Inc., announced today the identification of the first six biological targets for which the company is designing new drug candidates. This development follows the formation of a strategic relationship TeraDiscoveries has established with Microsoft Corp. Microsoft is providing support and cloud computing time on Windows Azure that TeraDiscoveries is applying to identify inhibitors of 25 top biological targets. The first six targets, which are now undergoing computer modeling, are HDAC8, JAK3, JAK2, PGP, HSP90, and the thioredoxin/glutathione reductase protein from the Schistosoma parasite.

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Marcia Boumil of Tufts University School of Medicine examines state laws regulating pharmaceutical gifts to doctors and finds that their constitutionality may be in question in light of a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court case from Vermont concerning data mining.

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A new study by University of Kentucky researchers shows how light and strained ruthenium-based drugs may be more effective at fighting cancer cells and less toxic to healthy cells than a similar and widely used drug.

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A new set of computer models has successfully predicted negative side effects in hundreds of current drugs, based on the similarity between their chemical structures and those molecules known to cause side effects, according to a paper appearing online this week in the journal Nature.

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Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine developed a cancer model built in the fruit fly Drosophila, then used it to create a whole new approach to the discovery of cancer treatments. The result is an investigational compound AD80 that precisely targets multiple cancer genes. Tested in mouse models, the drug proved far more effective and less toxic than standard cancer drugs, which generally focus on a single target. This is the first time that whole-animal screening has been used in a rational, step-wise approach to polypharmacology. The study appears online today in the journal Nature.

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New drug, vismodegib, is effective in dramatically shrinking and preventing the formation of basal cell skin cancers – the most common cancer in the United States – in patients with basal cell nevus syndrome (BCNS), a rare genetic condition that causes hundreds to thousands of skin cancers primarily treated by surgical removal.

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A clinical study has demonstrated that a new drug, a targeted molecular therapy called vismodegib (trade name Erivedge™), can dramatically shrink basal cell skin cancers and prevent the formation of new ones, in patients with basal cell nevus syndrome (BCNS). A phase II clinical study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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The HIV drugs known as CCR5 antagonists may also help prevent aggressive breast cancers from metastasizing, researchers from the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson suggest in a preclinical study published in a recent issue of Cancer Research.

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Drugs for type 2 diabetes can contribute to unwanted side effects, but Washington University researchers have found that in mice, an investigational drug appears to improve insulin sensitivity without side effects. The medicine works through a different pathway, which could provide additional targets for treating insulin resistance and diabetes.

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A research team led by Tony Kusalik and Scott Napper have harnessed bioinformatics and molecular biology to create powerful software that promises to become a “must have” tool in drug development research labs the world over. The software is used to analyze kinases – a type of enzyme involved in virtually every cellular function, from energy use and reproduction to modifying gene expression. A demonstration of its effectiveness recently appeared in the journal Science Signalling.

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The antidepressant drug duloxetine, known commercially as Cymbalta, helped relieve painful tingling feelings caused by chemotherapy in 59 percent of patients, a new study finds. This is the first clinical trial to find an effective treatment for this pain.

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A team of researchers led by Dr. Goutham Narla at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in collaboration with scientists at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, have discovered a previously unrecognized signaling network disrupted in lung cancer that can be turned back on by a novel combination of two previously approved FDA drugs. The drug combination targets a pathway to treat advanced/late stage lung cancer. The work highlights how understanding the basic mechanisms regulating cancer development and progression can lead to new uses for existing FDA approved drugs in the treatment of cancer.

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• Final phase III trial analyses substantiate interim results that led to FDA approval. • Crossover trial design worked and benefitted patients. • Long-term overall survival benefit estimated with no new adverse events.

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A Perspective piece published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine outlines a plan for an “ideal” prescription-drug monitoring program that would enable doctors, dentists, pharmacists, researchers and law enforcement officials to access real-time data on patients’ prescription drug histories to help cut abuse of these drugs.

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A growing concern with fraud and misconduct in published drug studies has led researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Pharmacoeconomic Research to investigate the extent and reasons for retractions in the research.

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Patients with mental health disorders, particularly schizophrenia, have higher rates of cigarette smoking and more difficulty quitting. Physicians at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School researching effective smoking cessation treatments have found that the drug varenicline is an effective tool at helping schizophrenics quit smoking without causing undue harm.

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After years of reducing their contact with pharmaceutical sales representatives, physicians now risk an unintended consequence: Doctors who rarely meet with pharmaceutical sales representatives — or who do not meet with them — are much slower to drop medicines with the Food and Drug Administration’s “black box” warnings and to adopt first-in-class therapies.

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Potentially severe hypersensitivity reactions to the anti-HIV drug abacavir occur through an autoimmune mechanism, resulting from the creation of drug-induced immunogens that are attacked by the body's immune system, according to a study published online by the journal AIDS, official journal of the International AIDS Society. AIDS is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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Patient care nationwide may be affected when research on medications contain only ‘good news’ – especially when the research is industry-funded.

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An inexpensive “orphan drug” used to treat sleep disorders appears to be a potent inhibitor of cancer cells, according to a new study led by scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Their novel approach, using groundbreaking technology that allows rapid analysis of the genome, has broad implications for the development of safer, more-effective cancer therapies.

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In a recent article published in MELANOMA RESEARCH and a subsequent commentary in British medical journal THE LANCET, researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center discussed new therapeutic options for the management of melanoma brain metastases. Patients with advanced melanoma are at high risk for developing brain metastases. Once brain metastases are present, these patients tend to have poor outcomes.

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Research by a collaborative group of scientists from UC San Diego School of Medicine, UC San Francisco and Wake Forest School of Medicine has led to identification of an existing drug that is effective against Entamoeba histolytica. This parasite causes amebic dysentery and liver abscesses and results in the death of more than 70,000 people worldwide each year.

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A team of researchers from UCSF and UC San Diego has identified an approved arthritis drug that is effective against amoebas in lab and animal studies, suggesting it could offer a low-dose, low cost treatment for the amoebic infections that cause human dysentery throughout the world.

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Krzysztof Szalewicz, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Delaware, and Rafal Podeszwa of the University of Silesia Institute of Chemistry in Poland have developed and validated a more accurate method for predicting the interaction energy of large molecules, such as biomolecules used to develop new drugs.

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New generic medications are set to come to market in June after the exclusivity agreement with Lipitor expires. This could lead to confusion at pharmacy counters as many on the medication may see changes. Clark Kebodeaux, Pharm.D., is a practicing pharmacist who can explain to your audience about the changes, what it means for your out of pocket costs, and help anticipate questions audience members may have for pharmacists.

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A new link between obesity and type 2 diabetes found in mice could open the door to exploring new potential drug treatments for diabetes, University of Michigan Health System research has found.

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Highlights • Children with a particular kidney immune disorder that is unresponsive to standard treatments do not benefit from the immune drug rituximab. • Additional studies are needed to fully understand the disease and to develop effective therapies for hard-to-treat cases.

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Continuing a popular but controversial treatment for osteoporosis could reduce spine fracture risk for a particular group of patients, but others could see little to no change if they discontinue it. Based on available evidence, a UCSF researcher reevaluated his 2006 finding from a randomized 10-year study of alendronate, a type of bisphosphonate – a class of drugs that prevent loss of bone mass.

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Sildenafil, also known as the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, may give a boost to underdeveloped hearts in children and young adults with congenital heart defects.

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A new analysis concludes that rituximab, a drug commonly used to treat blood cancers, leads to treatment responses lasting at least five years in approximately one quarter of patients with low platelet counts and a risk of bleeding due to chronic immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP). In study results published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), investigators at Weill Cornell Medical College provide the very first long-term outcome data for patients with chronic ITP treated with rituxamab.

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Results of a new study demonstrate the feasibility of a novel strategy in drug discovery: screening large numbers of existing drugs — often already approved for other uses — to see which ones activate genes that boost natural immunity.

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After nearly 13 years of study and intense debate, a pair of new papers from the Perelman School of Medicine, at the University of Pennsylvania have confirmed exactly how a once-popular class of anti-inflammatory drugs leads to cardiovascular risk for people taking it.

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⎯ A few months after the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on the use of psychoactive drugs by children in foster care in five states, a national study from PolicyLab at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia describes prescription patterns over time in 48 states. The updated findings show the percentage of children in foster care taking antipsychotics--a class of psychoactive drugs associated with serious side effects for children-- continued to climb in the last decade. At the same time, a slight decline was seen in the use of other psychoactive medications, including the percentage of children receiving 3 or more classes of these medications at once (polypharmacy).

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Study of anti-hypertensive drug moxonidine finds, in an animal model, that the drug can improve heart function and survival independent of its effect on blood pressure