http://medicalxpress.com/medications-news/ en-us PhysOrg Team Medical Xpress provides the latest news on medicine, health, medications, medicines and prescriptions. A new report suggests that improved health care and significant reductions in drug costs might be attained by breaking up the age-old relationship between physicians and drug company representatives who promote the newest, more costly and often unnecessary prescription drugs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-breakup-physician-drug-company-relationship.html Medications 2013-05-20T12:35:52-07:00 Federal health regulators say an experimental insomnia drug from Merck can help patients fall asleep, but it also carries worrisome side effects, including daytime drowsiness and suicidal thinking. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-fda-safety-merck-insomnia-drug.html Medications 2013-05-20T11:16:37-07:00 (AP)—Former Navy Secretary Richard J. Danzig, who has served as a bio-warfare adviser to the president, the Pentagon, and the Department of Homeland Security, urged the government to stockpile an anti-anthrax drug while serving as a director for the company that supplied it, according to a report published Sunday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-board-firm-sold-anthrax-drug.html Medications 2013-05-20T04:56:44-07:00 Europe's medicines watchdog said Friday the benefits of acne drug Diane-35, also widely used as a contraceptive, outweigh the risk of developing blood clots in the veins—when correctly prescribed. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-acne-pill-benefits-outweigh-blood.html Medications 2013-05-17T11:40:03-07:00 Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and Switzerland's Cytos Biotechnology AG today announced that the first healthy volunteer has been dosed in a Phase 1 clinical trial with their H1N1 influenza vaccine candidate based on Cytos' proprietary bacteriophage Qbeta virus-like particle (VLP) technology. In this first Phase 1 clinical trial, the safety and immunogenicity of this novel vaccine candidate and its potential to protect against H1N1 influenza infection will be evaluated. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-influenza-vaccine-brought-clinical.html Medications 2013-05-17T10:53:37-07:00 (Medical Xpress)—An aspirin a day may not always keep heart disease away, say two University of Florida cardiologists. But a new algorithm they have developed outlines factors physicians should weigh as they assess whether a patient would benefit from a daily dose of the drug. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-aspirin-treatment-individuals.html Medications 2013-05-16T07:28:12-07:00 (HealthDay)—The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved new, lower-dose labeling for the popular sleep drug Ambien (zolpidem) in an effort to cut down on daytime drowsiness that could be a hazard while performing certain tasks such as driving. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-fda-ambien-dose-drowsy.html Medications 2013-05-15T21:30:02-07:00 (HealthDay)—Simponi (golimumab) injection has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat adults with moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-simponi-ulcerative-colitis.html Medications 2013-05-15T21:00:01-07:00 The Food and Drug Administration says it approved a genetic test from Roche to help doctors identify patients who can benefit from a lung cancer drug made by Genentech. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-fda-genetic-lung-cancer-drug.html Medications 2013-05-14T17:20:21-07:00 The Indian government announced Tuesday the development of a new low-cost vaccine proven effective against a diarrhea-causing virus that is one of the leading causes of childhood deaths across the developing world. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-india-unveils-vacccine-deadly-diarrhoea.html Medications 2013-05-14T08:40:40-07:00 The Obama administration and federal courts are wrangling over changes to the regulations governing access to emergency contraceptives. The administration supports new rules that would allow girls as young as 15 to purchase the drug without a prescription, while a New York judge has ordered it be made available to anyone, regardless of age. With those changes pending, Northeastern University news office asked Todd Brown, vice chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, to explore the issue. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-future.html Medications 2013-05-14T07:00:01-07:00 A subsidiary of India's largest pharmaceutical company has agreed to pay a record $500 million in fines and penalties for selling adulterated drugs and lying to federal regulators in a case that is part of an ongoing crackdown on the quality of generic drugs flowing into the U.S. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-drug-million-penalty.html Medications 2013-05-13T17:20:01-07:00 (AP)—Consumer alert: If you or someone you know needs costly medications and you're hoping President Barack Obama's health care law will meet the need, you may be in for a surprise. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-huge-drug-disparities-health-overhaul.html Medications 2013-05-13T09:16:38-07:00 Once famously described as "orphan diseases, too small to be noticed, too small to be funded" in the Hollywood drama Lorenzo's Oil, rare diseases are getting unprecedented attention today among drug manufacturers, who are ramping up research efforts and marketing new medicines that promise fuller lives for children and other patients with these heartbreaking conditions. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-renaissance-drugs-rare-diseases.html Medications 2013-05-13T08:36:10-07:00 Irish drugmaker Elan Corp. PLC plans to pay $1 billion for the right to future royalties from four respiratory treatments being developed by Theravance Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-irish-biotech-firm-elan-bn.html Medications 2013-05-13T08:00:09-07:00 (Medical Xpress)—The results of a phase 1/2 clinical trial in Europe of an investigational Lyme disease vaccine co-developed by researchers at Stony Brook University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and at Baxter International Inc., a U.S. based healthcare company, revealed it to be promising and well tolerated, according to a research paper published online in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The vaccine was shown to produce substantial antibodies against all targeted species of Borrelia, the causative agent of Lyme disease in Europe and the United States. Baxter International conducted the clinical trial of the vaccine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-lyme-disease-vaccine-clinical-trial.html Medications 2013-05-13T07:54:50-07:00 Scientists have developed a global media surveillance system that enables them to look for, and systematically monitor, up-to-the-minute public concerns and rumors about vaccines originating from 144 countries. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-global-surveillance-tool-detectsmonitors-vaccines.html Medications 2013-05-12T18:30:01-07:00 In a surprise move, federal health regulators have denied a request by Endo Health Solutions to block generic versions of its painkiller Opana ER, which the company argued can be more easily abused than its branded product. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-fda-denies-block-painkiller.html Medications 2013-05-10T17:12:44-07:00 International development charity Save the Children is linking up with British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline in what both sides say is a unique collaboration to save children's lives in Africa. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-children-teams-pharma-giant-gsk.html Medications 2013-05-10T14:10:02-07:00 The Food and Drug Administration says it has approved a new once-a-day inhaler drug from GlaxoSmithKline for patients with chronic lung disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-fda-once-a-day-inhaler-glaxo.html Medications 2013-05-10T13:20:01-07:00 Rice University students have created a way to help health care workers track vaccines and keep them at a safe temperature. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-vaccines-temperature.html Medications 2013-05-10T06:28:35-07:00 Two multinational drugmakers are teaming up with top global health groups to protect millions of girls in the world's poorest countries from deadly cervical cancer. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-drugmakers-health-groups-poor-girls.html Medications 2013-05-09T08:20:02-07:00 (Medical Xpress)—McGill University post-doctoral fellow Spencer Phillips Hey and Prof. Jonathan Kimmelman, Biomedical Ethics, Social Studies of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine argue that some clinical trials of new drugs need to fail in order to protect study volunteers and healthcare systems. Their work is published this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-ethics-experts-thoughtful-optimization-drug.html Medications 2013-05-09T06:50:01-07:00 New engineered spider protein could be the start of a new generation of anti-venom vaccines, potentially saving thousands of lives worldwide. The new protein, created from parts of a toxin from the reaper spider, is described today in the journal Vaccine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-spider-toxin-future-anti-venom-vaccines.html Medications 2013-05-09T04:08:12-07:00 Drugmaker Merck & Co. says the Food and Drug Administration is reviewing its second application to sell a new type of allergy treatment meant to gradually reduce allergic reactions over time, rather than just relieving sneezing, itching and other symptoms temporarily. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-merck-fda-ragweed-allergy-therapy.html Medications 2013-05-08T18:40:01-07:00 (AP)—Spanish victims of thalidomide on Wednesday published documents they claim prove a German drug company kept distributing the notorious drug in Spain six months after it was taken off the market in other countries. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-victims-thalidomide-sold-spain-post-withdrawal.html Medications 2013-05-08T13:40:01-07:00 (HealthDay)—Pregnant women who struggle with migraine headaches should never use medicines containing the ingredient valproate because they can lower the IQ scores of their children, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Monday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-fda-pregnant-women-migraine-drugs.html Medications 2013-05-06T18:24:19-07:00 Pfizer Inc., in a first for the drug industry, told The Associated Press that the drugmaker will begin selling its popular erectile dysfunction pill Viagra directly to patients on its website. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-bashful-blue-pill-online.html Medications 2013-05-06T05:20:02-07:00 (HealthDay)—Women taking birth control pills with lower amounts of estrogen—a commonly prescribed contraceptive—may be at higher risk for chronic pelvic pain and pain during orgasm, according to new research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-low-dose-pill-linked-pain-orgasm.html Medications 2013-05-03T14:30:01-07:00 (HealthDay)—Procysbi (cysteamine bitartrate) delayed-release capsules have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat nephropathic cystinosis in children (6 years and up) and adults. Since it is intended to treat a rare disease or condition, Procysbi has been granted orphan product designation. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-fda-procysbi-nephropathic-cystinosis.html Medications 2013-05-02T18:30:01-07:00