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Pharmacology
Why major HIV and statins finding may not apply in South Africa
One of the biggest stories in HIV in the past year was that statins could help reduce cardiovascular disease in people with the virus....
Pre-surgery chemo ups pancreatic cancer survival – Yale study
Patients with pancreatic cancer who received chemotherapy both before and after surgery experienced longer survival rates than would be expected from surgery followed by...
Lilly’s Alzheimer’s drug a step closer to final FDA nod
A committee of independent advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously last week that the benefits outweigh the risks of the...
Paxlovid no better than placebo for long Covid – US study
In what will be a blow for millions of people with long Covid, which currently has no approved treatment or cure, a recent study...
European warning on drug-resistant gonorrhoea and rise in infections
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has recorded a worryingly dramatic surge of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) amid a substantial increase in...
DNA technology may impede MDR-TB progress – SA Health Department
The National Department of Health plans to use DNA technology to test whether the genetic make-up of TB germs has changed in such a...
Antidepressant withdrawal symptoms common – meta-analysis
At least 15% of people who stop taking antidepressants will suffer from withdrawal symptoms, suggests a recent analysis, which found dizziness, headache and nausea...
Male birth control gel shows promise in US trial
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) says a combination hormonal topical gel has shown promise by suppressing sperm production in a shorter amount...
FDA says no to ecstasy for PTSD treatment
US Food and Drug Administration advisers have voted against a therapy based on the mind-altering drug MDMA, known as “ecstasy”, for patients with post-traumatic...
UK safety updates for topical steroids
British health authorities have issued a drug safety update saying that while topical steroid products are safe and highly effective treatments for managing various...
Zantac did not cause cancer, jury says in first trial over drug
An elderly American woman’s claim that the new discontinued heartburn drug Zantac was the cause of her colon cancer has been rejected by a...
Ozempic use surges by 600% in children – US analysis
The number of 12- to 25-year-olds using GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy has climbed by almost 600%, according to a recent analysis of...
FDA approves drug for deadly lung cancer
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an innovative new treatment for patients with a form of lung cancer – to be...
Weekly insulin jabs show good results
A once-weekly insulin injection, efsitora, has showed blood sugar reduction consistent with commonly used daily insulins across two studies in patients with type 2...
Common antibiotic for sepsis treatment linked to higher mortality – US study
Recent research by American scientists suggests that a commonly prescribed antibiotic for patients with suspected sepsis may be linked to increased mortality.
The study, led...
EMA suspends preterm birth drugs over possible cancer risk
The European Medicine Agency’s safety committee has recommended the suspension of the marketing authorisations for medicines containing 17-hydroxyprogesterone caproate (17-OHPC) in the European Union, after reviews...
Pharmacy ARV treatment will erode GPs’ income – HPCSA
The Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) has warned against pharmacists being allowed to prescribe HIV treatment, saying it could affect the income of...
AstraZeneca withdraws Covid jab worldwide
London-based AstraZeneca has withdrawn its Covid jab worldwide, but says the discontinuation is unrelated to legal action related to serious side effects.
“As multiple, variant...
Hormones safe for menopause – US study dispels old flawed findings
The benefits of hormone therapy for the treatment of menopause symptoms outweigh the risks, and what is available now is very different from two...
FDA aims to reduce toxicity, boost efficiency, of cancer drugs
With evidence that thousands of cancer patients become so ill from their treatment that they skip their dosage or stop taking it altogether –...
FDA accelerated approval for Duchenne drug questioned
The decision by the US Food and Drug Administration to grant accelerated approval for gene therapy to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and which includes...
NICE approves drug combo for young brain cancer patients
British children and teenagers with an aggressive form of brain cancer may benefit after a new life-extending drug combination was recommended for NHS use...
Young black female scientist’s role in leprosy cure
For centuries, and up until about the 1920s, there was no remedy for leprosy’s debilitating symptoms or its social stigma, but these days it’s...
No link between suicide and weight loss drugs – EMA
Evidence does not support a causal association between the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1) – dulaglutide, exenatide, liraglutide, lixisenatide and semaglutide – and suicidal...
Post-birth esketamine slashes depression by three quarters – Chinese study
Scientists recently found that a single dose of 0.2 mg/kg of esketamine soon after childbirth reduced major depressive events among women with prenatal depressive...
Don’t panic, say experts as HIV drug flagged for resistance
Results from recent studies reveal the emergence of resistance in subsets of HIV patients to dolutegravir – an antiretroviral commonly used in South Africa...
Diabetes drug shows promise in slowing Parkinson’s – French study
Researchers say findings that diabetes drug lixisenatide may slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease could be a major step forward, and provide hope for...
Bayer seeks approval for ‘hot flushes’ drug
German pharmaceutical company Bayer will request regulatory approval for its menopause medication after the daily pill was shown to ease hot flushes in a...
Acne drug not linked to higher suicide risk – meta-analysis
Users of the acne drug isotretinoin do not experience an increased risk of suicide, according to a recent meta-analysis, but may actually have a...
Non-profits take over from Big Pharma in new drugs trials
Effective, affordable antimicrobial drugs are desperately needed around the world, and last November, a clinical trial offered a glimmer of hope, when an oral...
US regulator probes role of supply chain middlemen in drug shortages
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have issued a request for information on the practices of...
Thousands of Covid deaths tied to hydroxychloroquine – French study
Research led by scientists from the University of Lyon in France into the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), prescribed during the first wave of Covid-19,...
Key year for innovative new medicines
While last year was characterised by innovative new drugs, with new medications for Alzheimer’s disease, weight loss, and the first treatment based on the gene-editing technology CRISPR,...
UK regulatory body warns about Paxlovid risks
Britain’s health regulator has issued a warning about Covid-19 medication Paxlovid and the potential for risk of harmful drug interactions because of the ritonavir...
CVD risk upped by long-term use of ADHD drugs
A case-control study by Swedish scientists suggests that longer use of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medication is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular...
Why obese people should not be excluded from drug trials
Although more than 40% of American adults are considered obese, the medications many take are rarely tested in bigger bodies, because they are not...
Ketamine use soars after opioid crackdown despite little research, regulation
As US doctors scale back their use of opioid painkillers, a new option for hard-to-treat pain is taking root: ketamine, the decades-old surgical drug...
US sets price for (costly) new postpartum depression pill
Pharma giant Sage Therapeutics has priced the oral postpartum depression (PPD) pill it developed with partner Biogen at $15 900 for a full 14-day course of...
SA moves to treat depression with psychedelics
Drugs demonised by their recreational use in the 1960s are proving their worth in helping to improve people’s mental health, with traditional psychedelic substances...
FDA issues compounded ketamine products warning
The US Food & Drug Administration has flagged the increasing use of compounded ketamine products for treating disorders like depression, anxiety, PTSD and OCD,...