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Aspen urges co-operation for local production of mpox vaccines
With Africa under immense pressure to curb an outbreak of the mpox, Aspen Pharmacare is “in talks” with partners to manufacture vaccines at its...
Price of lifesaving drug deliberately hiked – UK court
British taxpayers were forced to pay millions of pounds for a lifesaving drug after a pharmaceutical company deliberately inflated the cost, pushing it up...
US boosts allowance for Japanese ADHD drug to alleviate shortage
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has increased the production limit for Takeda Pharmaceuticals’ ADHD drug Vyvanse and its generic versions by about 24%...
Global counterfeit scheme likely behind Fake Ozempic spread
Forged drug batch numbers, which are being used by criminals to sell dangerous lookalike weight loss products, could be linked to a massive global...
What time is best to take daily BP pills?
Based on data from five trials and nearly 50 000 patients, researchers have found “conclusive evidence” that taking medicine for blood pressure (BP) in...
Experts flag rise of drug-resistant contagious fungus
A newly named fungal species has global scientists worried about its stubborn resistance to usually effective first-line drugs, the fact that it can be...
Doctors flag painkiller prescribed ‘for everything’
Huge numbers of older people are taking the non-opioid pain medication gabapentin for a variety of conditions, including itching, alcohol dependence and sciatica, with...
EMA rejects US-approved Alzheimer’s drug
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has rejected a licence for the Alzheimer’s treatment lecanemab (Leqembi), saying the benefits did not counterbalance the risk of serious side...
SA woman drops case against US firm for cystic fibrosis drug
Johannesburg investment banker Cheri Nel has dropped a potentially landmark court case against Vertex Pharmaceutical in which she sought to secure access to lifesaving...
US to buy African-made ARVs for Pepfar programme
America is throwing its weight behind African production of antiretrovirals, with the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief programme (Pepfar) committing to buying...
Acne antibiotics trigger rare, fatal chain reaction
A deadly reaction to antibiotics often used to treat acne, gout and seizures is flying under the radar because it’s so rare, but experts,...
Daily antibiotic wards off STIs – Canadian study
Scientists from Vancouver say their recent small study suggests a daily dose of a common antibiotic may prevent some infections with syphilis, gonorrhoea and...
Sackler family faces rash of lawsuits for OxyContin crisis
Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of highly addictive opioid OxyContin, is being pursued by a mass of creditors as well as more than 40 states...
J&J price probe dropped after TB drug costs slashed
Health NGOs have hailed the agreement reached between the Competition Commission and Johnson and Johnson (J&J) and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals over the termination...
Draft codeine guideline now out for comment
The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has released its new draft guideline it hopes will help stem the misuse of codeine, and...
How effective are analgesics for non-specific low back pain?
Experts have warned that analgesics have limited effect on low back pain – the world’s leading cause of disability, with half a billion (9%)...
Tirzepatide effective for obstructive sleep apnoea – US study
An international collaboration has suggested that tirzepatide, known to manage type 2 diabetes, could be the first effective drug therapy for obstructive sleep apnoea...
Australian pharmacists lash out at vape policy turnaround
Furious Australian pharmacists have hit back at a new Bill permitting consumers to buy plain-packaged nicotine vapes from pharmacies without a prescription, saying they...
Krejcir’s lawyers blame prison doctors for OxyContin habit
Lawyers representing Czech Republic-born mobster Radovan Krejcir last week accused Gauteng prison doctors of prescribing a highly addictive drug to treat the underworld boss...
Fewer people may need statins to prevent heart disease – US study
A new way of determining heart disease risk could slash the numbers of people who are prescribed statins, suggests a recent study, although doctors...
American Academy: Updated guidelines for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), has issued the first update in eight years to the Clinical Practice Guideline(CPG) for Management of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome...
Campaigners call for cheaper version of costly HIV drug
Former world leaders, celebrities and a Nobel prize-winning scientist who helped discover HIV have written to US pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences pleading with it...
Aspen calls for regulator to prioritise locally-made drugs
Aspen Pharmacare has urged SA’s medicines regulator to support local firms by fast-tracking their applications to register new products, with head of strategic trade...
Judge green-lights 700 000 Zantac lawsuits
In a blow to British pharmaceutical company GSK, a Delaware judge has given the go-ahead for more than 70 000 lawsuits alleging that its...
BP meds double bone-fracture risk in elderly patients – US cohort study
Nursing home patients who take blood pressure drugs have a higher than normal risk of life-threatening bone fractures, which can then often trigger a...
Ozempic cuts kidney disease risk – global study
A multi-year study finding that Ozempic markedly lowers the risk of complications from chronic kidney disease could dramatically increase the pool of patients eligible...
Weight-loss shots linked to unexpected pregnancies
With claims suggesting that weight-loss jabs may be fuelling an unexpected increase in pregnancies, experts have recommended that women pair the use of drugs...
More of Big Pharma's Covid vaccine bully tactics laid bare
With the release of a second tranche of information showing how South Africa was bullied into paying outrageously high prices for its Covid-19 vaccines,...
Justice yet to be served in US osteoporosis drug case
A US court case by 1 000 plaintiffs against pharmaceutical company Merck has been dragging on since 2011, writes Gregory Curfman in JAMA Network,...
CVD benefits from weight-loss drugs a 'game-changer'
Two important studies were presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO), based on the landmark Semaglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes (SELECT) trial from...
SA to import costly cystic fibrosis drug, but few can afford it
Although US drug manufacturer Vertex has reached an agreement with Equity Pharmaceuticals to import and distribute its cystic fibrosis treatment Trikafta in SA, the...
New SAHPRA guidelines planned to address codeine abuse
South Africa’s medicines regulator is developing a new set of initiatives to stem the misuse of codeine, found in certain pain relief medicines and...
Scientists find Paxlovid does not shorten Covid symptoms in fully jabbed
Researchers have suggested that for people who are fully vaccinated but have at least one risk factor for severe Covid, the antiviral drug Paxlovid...
FDA approves new UTI treatment
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Pivya (pivmecillinam) tablets for to treat uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs), caused by susceptible isolates of...
UK issues side effect alert for men on hair loss, prostate drug
Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will introduce a patient alert card to boost awareness among men taking finasteride, warning about potential...
Can Big Pharma justify hefty drug prices?
Big Pharma's hefty price tags for some medicines have again come under scrutiny, with a drug developed by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) costing a...
Aspen ready to help shrink global shortage of weight-loss drugs
Aspen, Africa’s largest pharmaceutical company, could potentially help ease a growing shortage of the world’s hot-selling obesity medications, said CEO Stephen Saad recently, even...
US doctors slow to offer newly-approved Alzheimer’s drug
Sceptical American doctors are resisting prescribing the first drug that has been proved to slow the advance of Alzheimer’s – nine months after the...
Call to reduce antipsychotic medicines for dementia patients
Doctors are being urged to reduce prescribing of antipsychotic drugs to dementia patients after the largest study of its kind found they were linked...
Cheap diabetes drug may delay ageing, say US scientists
An inexpensive drug taken by millions of people to control diabetes may do more than lower blood sugar, with research suggesting it might have...