China is looking to speed up approvals for new drugs and plans to accept data from clinical trials carried out overseas, a potential boon for international drugmakers and patients who often face lengthy delays for new medicines to reach the market. More »
Flexion Therapeutics Inc said its injectable drug to treat osteoarthritis-related knee pain was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, sending the drug developer's shares soaring to a record high in regular trading on Friday. More »
A U.S. jury on Thursday ordered AbbVie Inc to pay more than $140 million to a man who claimed the company misrepresented the risks of its testosterone replacement drug AndroGel, causing him to suffer a heart attack, the plaintiff's lawyer said in a statement. More »
New Jersey on Thursday accused Insys Therapeutics Inc of engaging in a fraudulent scheme to boost sales of a fentanyl-based cancer pain drug, as Massachusetts announced a $500,000 settlement with the drugmaker to resolve similar allegations. More »
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled in favor of Eli Lilly and Co in a patent dispute over its cancer drug Alimta with Neptune Generics LLC and Sandoz Inc. More »
A trio of Swiss, American and British scientists won the 2017 Nobel chemistry prize on Wednesday for developing cryo-electron microscopy, allowing researchers to see biological molecules frozen in action. More »
A seasonal flu vaccine that would be the first in the world to fight all types of the virus is to be tested in a two-year clinical trial involving more than 2,000 patients by researchers in Oxford. More »
U.S. scientists Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young won the 2017 Nobel prize for medicine on Monday for unraveling molecular mechanisms that control our internal body clocks. More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday announced a series of measures designed to speed to market generic versions of complex drugs such as Mylan NV's emergency EpiPen in an effort to address the rising cost of pharmaceuticals. More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted priority review for Roche's Perjeta in combination with Herceptin and chemotherapy for treating HER2-positive early breast cancer after surgery, Roche said on Friday. More »
A new typhoid vaccine developed by privately-held Bharat Biotech proved safe and highly immunogenic in a study and could be used to prevent millions of infections if it succeeds in final-stage clinical trials, researchers said on Friday. More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday it approved an Eli Lilly and Co drug to treat advanced breast cancer that has progressed following prior treatment. More »
PTC Therapeutics Inc's experimental drug to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a devastating degenerative disease that mostly affects young boys, may work but the company will need to do more work to prove it, an advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Admini... More »
Washington state on Thursday sued OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP, becoming the latest state or local government to file a lawsuit seeking to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for a national opioid addiction epidemic. More »
Roche immunotherapy Tecentriq has won European Union approval for treating advanced lung and bladder cancer, the Swiss drugmaker said. More »
Aegerion Pharmaceuticals Inc will plead guilty to two misdemeanors and pay $40.1 million to resolve investigations into its marketing and sales of an expensive cholesterol drug, U.S. authorities said on Friday. More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has declined to approve Johnson & Johnson's rheumatoid arthritis drug sirukumab, saying additional clinical data is needed to further evaluate its safety, the company said on Friday. More »
A Native American tribe holding patents for drugmaker Allergan Plc (AGN.N) on Friday moved to dismiss a case brought by generic drug company Mylan NV (MYL.O) challenging the patents. More »
U.S. employers are bracing for higher health care expenses in 2018 as spending on new drugs to treat diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and hepatitis C is expected to rise more than 7 percent, according to consultancy firm Mercer. More »
Nabriva Therapeutics Plc shares more than doubled in premarket trading on Monday after the company said its experimental antibiotic for community-acquired bacterial pneumonia met the main goal of a late-stage study. More »
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown said on Friday a deal that drugmaker Allergan Plc made with a Native-American tribe to shield patents "rips off consumers" and cannot "become the new normal." More »
French biotech company Neovacs is confident that its experimental drug to treat lupus could grab significant market share from standard treatments of the auto-immune disease, its chief executive said. More »
Roche shares fell in early trading on Monday after trial failures added to the Swiss drugmaker's challenge of replacing patent-expired medicines with lucrative new drugs. More »
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd named H Lundbeck A/S Chief Executive Kare Schultz as its new CEO and president on Monday, as it struggles with heavy debts and fierce competition for its generic drugs in the United States. More »
Janssen Sciences Ireland UC, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, said it would discontinue further development of its hepatitis C research, citing increased availability of a number of effective hepatitis C therapies. More »
Sanofi and Regeneron's biotech drug dupilumab scored a hit in treating severe asthma, clinical trial data showed on Monday, raising competition in an expected multibillion-dollar market. More »
Swiss drugmaker Novartis notched a trial win for its drug cocktail against skin cancer on Monday, while a rival treatment from Roche with slipping sales failed in a separate study with a similar patient group. More »
Bristol-Myers Squibb's immunotherapy drug Opdivo is a better and safer option than its older medicine Yervoy for treating melanoma patients who have had surgery to remove disease, researchers reported on Monday. More »
A combination of two Bristol-Myers Squibb immunotherapy drugs cut the risk of death by 37 percent in a key group of kidney cancer patients, data from a closely watched clinical trial showed on Sunday. More »
Eli Lilly staked its claim for a slice of sales in a new class of breast cancer drugs on Sunday as clinical data showed adding its medicine abemaciclib to standard therapy reduced the risk of disease progression by 46 percent. More »
A new blood test from Roche and Foundation Medicine has shown it can accurately measure the number of mutations within a tumor, potentially helping to predict which patients may respond best to some immunotherapies. More »
Giving Merck & Co's immunotherapy drug Keytruda in combination with chemotherapy for previously untreated advanced lung cancer appears to provide durable benefits, according to an update of a closely watched clinical trial. More »
Ely Bowman, like most four-year olds, is a bundle of energy. He spends his days riding his toy car though the backyard of his Irvine, California, home, bowling with his pint-size ball and pins, and dancing under his bedroom disco ball. More »
New Mexico on Thursday sued eight opioid manufacturers and wholesale distributors, becoming the latest state or local government to file a lawsuit seeking to hold corporations accountable for a national drug addiction epidemic. More »
Novartis (NOVN.S) CEO Joe Jimenez will step down on Feb. 1 and hand over to drug development chief Vas Narasimhan to decide the fate of $50 billion in assets and make good on a pledge to return the Swiss company to sales growth. More »
The British government has rekindled its industrial strategy, unveiled earlier this year to prepare the economy for Brexit, with plans to boost the country's pharmaceuticals sector via fresh investments and public-private collaborations. More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it has approved Medicines Co's antibacterial drug for patients with complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI). More »
Abbott Laboratories said on Tuesday it would issue updates to reduce the risk of its St. Jude heart implants being hacked and to warn patients that the devices' batteries may run down earlier than expected. More »
Novartis will seek regulatory approval this year for a new kind of anti-inflammatory heart drug, though some experts fear fatal infection risks and a high price may overshadow the medicine's limited benefits. More »
Bayer and Johnson & Johnson's blockbuster clot prevention drug Xarelto was shown to cut the risk of potentially deadly strokes and heart attacks in patients with severe atherosclerosis by 24 percent, raising the prospects of billions more in sales. More »
Novo Nordisk said on Friday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an expanded use of its diabetes drug to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke. More »
Danish biotech company Bavarian Nordic expects to get its first milestone payment under a deal with Janssen Pharmaceuticals in 2019, if clinical trials for vaccines targeting hepatitis B and HIV-1 get underway next year, a company executive said. More »
Samsung Bioepis Co Ltd said on Monday it will fund and develop multiple original drugs in partnership with Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, expanding its business scope beyond copies of existing biologic drugs. More »
Hikma Pharmaceuticals Plc's U.S. subsidiary has raised the price of a common diarrhea drug by more than 400 percent and is charging more for five other medicines as well, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. More »
A federal jury has cleared Bayer AG and Johnson & Johnson of liability in the third case to go to trial out of thousands of lawsuits claiming the drugmakers' blood thinner Xarelto led to severe internal bleeding. More »
Insys Therapeutics Inc has agreed to pay $4.45 million to resolve a lawsuit by Illinois' attorney general claiming it deceptively marketed an addictive fentanyl-based cancer pain drug for off-label uses. More »
Trade tensions between Washington and Beijing may be running high but Corporate America is finding China to be a reliable source of profit growth this year. More »
Egypt's Beltone Financial will launch a $1 billion investment fund in fixed income instruments in September, its chief executive officer told Reuters on Monday. More »
A unit of China's Fosun Group and Shanghai Pharmaceuticals Holding Co (601607.SS) are among bidders for a stake in U.S. speciality drugmaker Arbor Pharmaceuticals LLC, the companies said on Monday. More »
Shares in Vernalis fell more than 15 percent on Monday as the British biotech company backed by fund manager Neil Woodford and his previous employer Invesco announced a fresh setback for a key new drug in the United States. More »
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on Friday proposed a 20 percent reduction in the manufacture of certain commonly prescribed opioid painkillers as well as other controlled substances for next year. More »
FILE PHOTO: The logo of AstraZeneca is seen on medication packages in a pharmacy in London April 28, 2014. AstraZeneca said on Tuesday that U.S. regulators had awarded its blood cancer drug acalabrutinib “breakthrough” status for the treatment of patients with... More »
EpiPen auto-injection epinephrine pens manufactured by Mylan NV pharmaceutical company for use by severe allergy sufferers are seen in Washington, U.S. August 24, 2016. Pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts Holding Co said on Monday it would favor drugmaker... More »
FILE PHOTO: A slug hangs from the finger of a gardener in a park in London, Britain April 29, 2016. Scientists have developed an experimental surgical glue inspired by the mucus secreted by slugs that could offer an alternative to sutures and staples for closi... More »
Doctor Gustavo Zuniga holds up an Antarctic plant that has molecules that filter the solar radiation and could be used to prevent human DNA damage in Santiago, Chile July 25, 2017. Scientists in Chile have discovered molecules in two species of Antarctic flowe... More »
A building belonging to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the world’s biggest generic drugmaker and Israel’s largest company, is seen in Jerusalem February 8, 2017. EU antitrust regulators charged Israeli drugmaker Teva (TEVA.TA) (TEVA.N) on Monday with doing an... More »
The portfolio managers of the $1.2 billion Eaton Vance Worldwide Health Sciences fund are expecting big gains from a trio of healthcare stocks. More »
German biotech group Morphosys expects to receive royalties from psoriasis drug guselkumab for five months this year, its Chief Executive Simon Moroney said, after its licensee received U.S. regulatory approval. More »
Two former Insys Therapeutics Inc sales representatives including the wife of its ex-chief executive pleaded guilty on Tuesday to engaging in schemes to pay kickbacks to medical practitioners to prescribe a drug containing the opioid fentanyl. More »
CVS Health Corp has paid $5 million to resolve allegations that pharmacies it operates in California failed to keep and maintain accurate records of prescription drugs, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday. More »
FILE PHOTO: Swiss drugmaker Roche’s logo is seen at their headquarters in Basel, Switzerland January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo Roche’s bid to muscle in on Shire’s share of the $11 billion hemophilia drug market took a new, contentious turn thi... More »
CEO of Shire, Dr Flemming Ornskov, poses for a photograph in London, Britain, July 3, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls – RTS19MDH Pharmaceutical group Shire (SHP.L) said on Sunday it had obtained a preliminary injunction in a Hamburg court against rival Roche (ROG... More »
An employee inspects tablets as they move along the production line at a pharmaceutical plant of Lupin, India’s No. 2 drugmaker, in Verna, in the western state of Goa, India, June 9, 2017. Picture taken June 9, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui In 28 years in Indi... More »
Inotek Pharmaceuticals Corp said on Friday it would evaluate strategic options after its sole experimental eye drug failed another trial, sending the company’s shares tumbling 45 percent in extended trading. More »
At least three people worldwide are infected with totally untreatable “superbug” strains of gonorrhoea which they are likely to be spreading to others through sex, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. More »
Endo International Plc said on Thursday it agreed to withdraw its long-acting opioid painkiller Opana ER from the market after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared its benefit did not outweigh public health risks associated with opioid abuse. More »
The main U.S. trade group for generic pharmaceutical companies filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to block a recently adopted Maryland law that lets the state attorney general sue generic drugmakers that sharply raise prices. More »
Cancer deaths in America’s rural areas are not falling as much as they are in urban areas even though the total deaths from the disease are dropping across the country, a U.S health agency report showed, emphasizing the gap in access to healthcare. More »
FILE PHOTO: Doctors and medical staff work during knee prosthesis surgery in an operation room at the hospital of the Canton of Nidwalden in Stans, Switzerland October 27, 2011. Picture taken October 27, 2011. REUTERS/Michael Buholzer/File Photo The world’s to... More »
Martin Shkreli, former chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals and KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc, departs after a hearing at U.S. Federal Court in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., June 26, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson Federal prosecutors on Monday asked a U.S... More »
British liquid biopsy company Angle said its Parsortix blood test had beaten current methods in identifying ovarian cancer, a breakthough that could help women receive the best possible outcome from surgery. More »
A brain training computer game developed by British neuroscientists has been shown to improve the memory of patients in the very earliest stages of dementia and could help such patients avert some symptoms of cognitive decline. More »
FILE PHOTO: Signage for GlaxoSmithKline is seen on its offices in London, Britain, March 30, 2016. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo The world’s leading drug companies are turning to artificial intelligence to improve the hit-and-miss business of finding new me... More »
Democratic Republic of Congo declared its two-month Ebola outbreak officially over on Saturday after 42 days without recording a new case of the disease. More »
remitting form of MS.) More »
A view shows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland August 14, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a new oral blood-thinner made by Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc to preven... More »
By Shereen Lehman(Reuters Health) – If a parent or sibling has cirrhosis due to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a person’s odds of having liver sc More »
Israel’s Gamida Cell, which is developing cellular therapies to treat cancer and rare genetic diseases, said on Monday it raised $40 million to finance the advanced trial of its product NiCord to facilitate bone marrow transplants. More »
Swiss drugmaker Novartis on Monday said it had won European approval for its biosimilar version of Roche’s blockbuster Rituxan as the crosstown rivals go head-to-head on a drug to treat blood cancers and immunological diseases. More »
FILE PHOTO: The logo of AstraZeneca is seen on a medication package in a pharmacy in London, Britain, April 28, 2014. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth/File Photo Scientists have developed a new three-in-one blood test that has the potential to turn AstraZeneca’s drug Ly... More »
By Shereen Lehman(Reuters Health) – – Death rates from liver cancer in the U.S. have doubled since the 1980s and continue to rise, largely due to ris More »
A synthetic version of a medicine traditionally extracted from chili plant relieved knee pain among osteoarthritis patients for up to six months, data showed, bringing Centrexion Therapeutics a step closer to developing a safe and effective analgesic. More »
People who are aged 75 or older and take aspirin daily to ward off heart attacks face a significantly elevated risk of serious or even fatal bleeding and should be given heartburn drugs to minimize the danger, a 10-year study has found. More »
Democratic Republic of Congo has suffered two separate outbreaks of polio, a debilitating and potentially deadly disease that the world is trying to eradicate, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. More »
Swiss drugmaker Roche’s logo is seen at their headquarters in Basel, Switzerland January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann Roche is convinced a new breast cancer drug will have a significant role in treating the disease despite recent trial results that disappoi... More »
FILE PHOTO — A screen displays the share price for pharmaceutical maker AbbVie on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange July 18, 2014. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo A federal jury on Friday awarded $15 million to a 10-year-old boy whose mother blamed ... More »
A small U.S. biotech has successfully regenerated skin and stimulated hair growth in pigs with burns and abrasions, paving the way for a scientific breakthrough that could lead to the regeneration of fully functional human skin. More »
By Lisa Rapaport(Reuters Health) – Women with depression may be more likely than other mothers to have children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity More »
By Gene Emery(Reuters Health) – One risk of taking lithium for bipolar disorder during the first trimester of pregnancy is turning out to be lower th More »
AbbVie Inc said on Wednesday its oral rheumatoid arthritis drug succeeded in a late-stage study on patients who had not adequately responded to standard treatments. More »
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen at the Laboratory of Entomology and Ecology of the Dengue Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 6, 2016. REUTERS/Alvin Baez/File Photo Puerto Rico on Monday declared that... More »
By Lisa Rapaport(Reuters Health) – A government-backed research collaboration program started in the 1950s has added about 3.34 million years of life More »
FILE PHOTO – A view shows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland August 14, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed/File Photo The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved Edwards Lifesciences Corp’s Sapien 3 artificia... More »
Kite Pharma Inc said on Monday it planned to launch in the fourth quarter of this year a Phase 2 trial of its experimental T-cell therapy in leukemia patients, possibly at a lower dose than is currently being tested. More »
By Carolyn CristNon-drug approaches that work best at relieving cancer-related fatigue may differ during and after cancer treatment, according to an More »
FILE PHOTO – A view shows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland August 14, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed/File Photo The number of new drugs approved for sale in United States and Europe has bounced back this year, sugge... More »
FILE PHOTO: Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen inside Oxitec laboratory in Campinas, Brazil, on February 2, 2016. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo Studies using gene sequencing equipment to trace the path of Zika through the Americas show the virus arrived a y... More »
The logo of Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche is seen outside their headquarters in Basel, January 30, 2014. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich/File Photo A person in Germany treated with Roche Holding AG’s new multiple sclerosis drug Ocrevus has been diagnosed with an oft... More »
GW Pharmaceuticals is set to file its cannabis-derived drug with U.S. regulators imminently, following publication of detailed data on its success in fighting severe childhood epilepsy. More »
Two former executives of Heritage Pharmaceuticals who pleaded guilty to fixing drug prices in January have agreed to settle with 41 states and territories involved in the probe, the Connecticut attorney general’s office said on Wednesday. More »
