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Pharmaceutical
‘Stuffy nose’ nasal spray warning in UK
Britain’s Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has issued a warning to the public about using nasal sprays for blocked noses beyond a week, reminding users...
People who stop weight-loss jabs regain weight in two years – UK study
A landmark study, led by researchers from Oxford University, has found that people who stop taking weight loss jabs regain all of the weight...
How ADHD drugs really work – US study
The stimulants Ritalin and Adderall have been used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for decades, but research shows they don’t act on the brain’s...
Weight-loss drugs top pharma list to watch in 2026
Eli Lilly has dominated headlines in recent months, recently taking the crown as the most valuable company in the biopharma industry by market cap....
Alzheimer’s drug developers accuse trial sites of faking data
A pharmaceutical research scandal revealing that clinical trials of Alzheimer’s drugs may have contained fudged and faked data has cast doubt on the companies...
Hidden market fuels fake script industry
The illegal prescription business is flourishing in South Africa, posing increasing public health and economic risks, warn experts, who urge greater effort to combat...
New warning added to contraceptive drug label as lawsuits rise
With more than 1 800 lawsuits linked to Pfizer’s Depo-Provera contraceptive drug, the US Food & Drug Administration is now officially warning users of a...
FDA green-lights Wegovy weight-loss pill
The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first oral glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist for weight loss and to reduce the...
Aspen cuts debt with R26.51bn deal
South Africa’s largest pharmaceutical producer, Aspen Pharmacare, has announced it will sell its Australia, New Zealand and Asia Pacific assets, excluding China, to Australian...
Urgent need for new ways to develop medicines
It’s imperative, urges an editorial in The Guardian, that the quest to discover new medicines be accelerated. Our magic bullets are increasingly rare and...
FDA approves second antibiotic for gonorrhoea
The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has given the green light to zoliflodacin (Nuzolvence) as an oral treatment for gonorrhoea, a day after...
Millions lost to dangerous fake drugs, warns Motsoaledi
Sales of counterfeit and illicit medicines are thriving in South Africa, with SAHPRA having recorded 507 suspected cases in 2024/25, of which 110 were...
New obesity drug delivers higher weight loss reduced knee pain
Eli Lilly’s next generation obesity drug has delivered the highest weight loss yet in a late stage trial while reducing knee arthritis pain, clearing...
Bleeding alert for cancer patients on extended blood-thinners
Researchers who have identified four predictors of clinically relevant bleeding in patients receiving extended anticoagulation with apixaban (Eliquis) for cancer-associated venous thromboembolism (VTE) said...
Positive results for chronic migraine treatment – Italian-Norwegian study
A collaborative team of Norwegian and Italian researchers has announced promising results for migraine prevention, saying a combination of onabotulinumtoxinA and atogepant was effective...
Nurse wins 'unjust dismissal' case over alleged ARV theft
A Free State nurse who was dismissed in 2021 for allegedly stealing anti-HIV medication from the MUCPP Community Health Centre in Bloemfontein has been...
Malaria tools saved 1m lives last year, but drug resistance rises – WHO
Wider use of new tools against malaria, including dual-ingredient nets and WHO-recommended vaccines, helped to prevent an estimated 170m cases and 1m deaths in...
FDA recalls BP drug for possible cross-contamination
Thousands of bottles of a commonly used prescription drug to treat hypertension have been recalled for possible contamination with another drug, reports USA Today.
Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, which has...
Smoother recoveries when patients exposed to music – Indian study
Researchers in India have suggested that music played during general anaesthesia can modestly but meaningfully reduce drug requirements and improve recovery, leading to among...
SA regulators battle to stem tide of illicit weight loss jabs
The booming trade in black market weight loss drugs in South Africa is spiralling, with authorities seemingly unable to plug the sources or prevent...
SA lines up plans to make its own six-monthly anti-HIV jab
The government says it could fill the potential gap in the number of doses of the HIV prevention jab Lenacapavir (LEN) needed to end...
FDA approves Japanese antibody drug for kidney disease
Japanese pharmaceutical company Otsuka has received FDA accelerated approval for its antibody drug that treats a disease affecting the kidneys’ ability to filter waste, reports...
First global guidelines for weight-loss drugs
The World Health Organisation has just released its first guideline on the use of Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 (GLP-1) therapies for treating obesity as a chronic,...
Trio convicted in major UK online illegal medicines bust
A major online syndicate involving a multimillion-pound criminal network supplying controlled drugs and unauthorised medicines has been bust wide open by British authorities.
Three people...
UK trials to test puberty blockers in children, young people
Two studies will investigate the impact of puberty blockers in young people with gender incongruence after researchers said an expert view had suggested gender...
Rising levels of drug-resistant gonorrhoea worldwide, warns WHO
Gonorrhoea is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, warns WHO, citing new data from its Enhanced Gonococcal Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme (EGASP), which monitors the spread...
Judge green-lights opioid settlement with Purdue, Sackler family
A federal bankruptcy court judge has said he will approve OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma's latest deal to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of...
AMR in South Africa a 'silent pandemic'
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains one of the most critical global health threats, which could result in 169m people dying of AMR-related causes over the...
PARP inhibitors under-used for prostate cancer – Utah study
Experts say it’s concerning that nearly half of men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who are eligible for PARP inhibitors – which could improve...
Obesity drug fails to slow dementia
Despite initial hopes to the contrary, Novo Nordisk has said that semaglutide, the active ingredient for the weight loss jab Wegovy, does not slow Alzheimer’s,...
HIV drugs roll-out under threat in court tender row
The National Department of Health has come under legal fire from the SA subsidiary of Indian generic pharmaceutical manufacturer Hetero, which alleges that the...
Optimism after promise of two new malaria treatments
Researchers have reported two promising new approaches to counteract malaria’s growing resistance to medication – one involving a new class of drugs, reports Medpage...
Hidden danger in swallowing pills, expert warns
Every year, people around the world take an astonishing 3.8trn doses of medicine. Most of them are swallowed rather than injected or inhaled, because...
FDA clears costly rare disease drug despite objections
An expensive rare disease drug was approved by the US Food & Drug Administration in September despite findings by eight data reviewers that the...
No link between Tylenol and autism in children – UK review
A wide-ranging review into paracetamol use by pregnant women has found no convincing link between the common painkiller and the chances of children being...
WHO roadmap for paediatric cancer drugs
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released six new target product profiles for child-friendly formulations of essential cancer medicines, giving pharmaceutical manufacturers a technical...
US paediatrician group won’t back leucovorin for autism
In interim guidance posted last week, the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) said it does not recommend the routine use of leucovorin for children...
Two superbugs responsible for Soweto newborn deaths – Wits study
Over the past 10 years, researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand’s vaccines and infectious diseases analytics unit analysed small tissue samples of 1...
New pill shows significant cuts in cholesterol
A powerful new drug from Merck – which introduced statins to the world nearly 40 years ago – could slash levels of dangerous LDL...
Pre-surgery drugs tied to more infections – Swiss study
A large cohort study conducted in Switzerland suggests that use of non-beta-lactam antibiotics before surgery should be avoided when possible, the researchers have reported...