U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks about health insurance marketplace enrollments and the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin March 3, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst Nearly a third of U.S. counties will likely be s... More »
A contractor fogs a condominium garden in Singapore in an effort to kill mosquitoes, September 5, 2013. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne/File Photo Singapore has confirmed 41 cases of locally transmitted Zika virus, mostly among foreign construction workers, and said it e... More »
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen inside Oxitec laboratory in Campinas, Brazil, February 2, 2016. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo Federal health officials on Friday warned pregnant women not to travel to trendy Miami Beach after Florida confirmed that the mo... More »
An edes aegypti mosquito is seen inside a test tube as part of a research on preventing the spread of the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases at a control and prevention center in Guadalupe, neighbouring Monterrey, Mexico, March 8, 2016. REUTERS/Danie... More »
Singapore has confirmed its first case of a locally-transmitted Zika virus, which has been linked to microcephaly, a rare birth defect, in Brazil, the health ministry said. More »
Workers from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department kill mosquitoes outside a construction site near a residential area in Hong Kong, China August 26, 2016, after the first case of Zika was confirmed in the city. REUTERS/Bobby Yip Hong Kong’s first Zika... More »
By Umberto BacchiLONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A test has been developed that could help diagnose bacterial infections including meningitis i More »
Artist Shaun Crawford draws illustrations of mosquitos for an educational brochure about Zika, in New York, New York U.S. August 18, 2016. REUTERS/Robert Mezan A picture is worth a thousand words – or at least that is the philosophy behind a New York clinic th... More »
By Julie Steenhuysen | CHICAGO CHICAGO The Obama administration on Friday declared a public health emergency in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, saying the rapid and widespread transmission of the Zika virus threatens the health of infected pregnant women an... More »
CHICAGO Three more people in Florida have tested positive for Zika caused by local mosquitoes, including another person who does not live in the one-square-mile (2.6-square-km) area believed to be the hub of local transmission, state officials said on Friday. ... More »
GEORGE TOWN Two people have contracted the Zika virus locally in the Cayman Islands, the health department said on Tuesday, bringing the total number infected by the virus in the Caribbean territory to eight. A woman living in Cayman’s capital George Town firs... More »
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO U.S. prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc (VRX.N) over whether it hid from insurers its relationship with a specialty pharmacy that helped boost its drug sales, the Wall Street J... More »
SEATTLE The U.S. government will announce on Thursday that it will allow more research into marijuana but has rejected requests to relax the classification of the substance as a dangerous, highly addictive drug with no medical use, sources with direct knowledg... More »
LOS ANGELES Consumer groups will deliver a petition from more than 350,000 people to the KFC restaurant chain on Wednesday, calling on the Yum Brands Inc unit (YUM.N) to stop the routine use of antibiotics by the companies that supply its chicken. Several fast... More »
MIAMI U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton urged federal lawmakers currently on summer recess back into session to pass a crucial funding bill to combat the Zika virus as she visited a health clinic at the heart of a local outbreak in Miami o... More »
LONDON GlaxoSmithKline and Google parent Alphabet’s life sciences unit are creating a new company focused on fighting diseases by targeting electrical signals in the body, jump-starting a novel field of medicine called bioelectronics. Verily Life Sciences – kn... More »
NEW YORK The United States will likely see more cases of local Zika virus transmission going forward, a U.S. health official warned on Sunday, although it is unlikely to turn into a broader situation as seen in Brazil or Puerto Rico. The comments comes after F... More »
CHICAGO The state of Florida, the first to report the arrival of Zika in the continental United States, has yet to invite a dedicated team of the federal government’s disease hunters to assist with the investigation on the ground, health officials told Reuters... More »
ORLANDO, Fla./MIAMI Florida authorities on Friday reported the first sign of local Zika transmission in the continental United States, concluding that mosquitoes likely infected four people with the virus that can cause a rare but serious birth defect. Governo... More »
LONDON The heirs of Dolly the sheep are enjoying a healthy old age, proving cloned animals can live normal lives and offering reassurance to scientists hoping to use cloned cells in medicine. Dolly, cloning’s poster child, was born in Scotland in 1996. She die... More »
SHANGHAI China health authorities have started a nationwide inspection of vaccinations four months after a scandal broke involving nearly $90 million worth of illegal vaccines that were suspected of being sold in dozens of provinces. Authorities will track pur... More »
CHICAGO As U.S. public health officials try to determine whether Zika has arrived in the country, doctors are establishing guidelines on how to care for the rising number of babies whose mothers were infected with the virus during pregnancy. Florida said it is... More »
SEOUL Biosimilars maker Samsung Bioepis, part of South Korea’s top family-run conglomerate Samsung Group [SAGR.UL], said on Monday it is seeking regulatory approval in Europe to sell its copy of AbbVie Inc’s rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira. Samsung Bioepis sa... More »
CHICAGO New York City’s health department on Friday reported the first documented case of sexual transmission of Zika from a woman to her male partner, raising new concerns about the spread of the virus, which is typically contracted through mosquito bites. Sc... More »
WASHINGTON The White House announced on Wednesday measures aimed at advancing President Barack Obama’s precision medicine initiative, including plans to speed the development of tests used to identify genetic mutations and guide medical treatment. The U.S. Foo... More »
CHICAGO A new type of cancer drug that takes the brakes off the body’s immune system has given drugmakers some remarkable wins against the deadly disease, but a top U.S. regulator says too many companies are focused on the same approach. Dr. Richard Pazdur, he... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO Brazil’s Health Minister Ricardo Barros said on Friday there is no scientific basis for postponing the Olympics because of the Zika virus, explaining that lower temperatures and fewer mosquitoes reduced the chance of infection in August when the... More »
CHICAGO Early results from a clinical trial of Roche Holding AG cancer drugs released on Saturday suggest some promise in matching treatments based on abnormalities found in a patient’s tumor rather than the organ in which the cancer was originally detected. T... More »
GENEVA/NEW YORK With debate growing over the safety of holding the Olympics in Brazil amid the ongoing Zika virus outbreak, the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee on Zika will meet in the coming weeks to evaluate the risks tied to going on with th... More »
U.S. Food and Drug Administration staff released voting questions on Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd’s long-acting opioid painkiller for a panel of independent experts who will recommend to the agency whether to approve the drug. An FDA spokesman on Friday ... More »
An experimental, long-acting painkiller made by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd does not have abuse-resistant properties when taken orally, according to a preliminary review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The drug, whose proposed trade name is Va... More »
NEW YORK World Health Organization officials on Friday cautioned that “many thousands” of infants infected with Zika virus could suffer neurological abnormalities and said nations dealing with an outbreak need to watch for problems beyond the widely reported c... More »
Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) is buying Anacor Pharmaceuticals Inc (ANAC.O) in a $5.2 billion deal to add an eczema gel to its portfolio, a month after the U.S. drug major scrapped plans to buy Allergan Plc (AGN.N). Anacor shares rose 54 percent to $98.60 in premarket tr... More »
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc said on Monday it would make available to all hospitals in the United States an enhanced rebate program to reduce the price of its heart drugs Nitropress and Isuprel. All hospitals are eligible for a rebate of at least... More »
NEW YORK – Pfizer Inc has taken steps to ensure that none of its products are used in lethal injections, the largest U.S. drugmaker said on Friday. “We are enforcing a distribution restriction for specific products that have been part of, or considered by some... More »
Medivation Inc (MDVN.O) will actively seek to sell itself after the US cancer drug maker rejected a $9.3 billion takeover offer from France’s Sanofi SA (SASY.PA), according to people familiar with the situation. The San Francisco-based company has agreed to op... More »
LONDON Roche has no plans to sell its diabetes testing business, despite a pummeling in the past three years from U.S. price cuts, and the Swiss drugmaker expects the unit to return to sales growth in 2017. Roland Diggelmann, head of Roche diagnostics, said th... More »
WASHINGTON The White House said on Monday it was concerned the debt crisis confronting Puerto Rico could hamper its ability to deal with the potential public health crisis caused by the spread of the Zika virus, which has sickened nearly people 700 on the isla... More »
CHICAGO U.S. health and safety officials issued new guidelines on Friday to help protect workers from exposure to Zika, a mosquito-borne and sexually-transmitted virus that causes the birth defect microcephaly and other neurological disorders. The new rules, i... More »
CAMBRIDGE, England AstraZeneca, working with genome pioneer Craig Venter, is launching a massive gene hunt in the most comprehensive bet yet by a pharmaceutical firm on the potential of genetic variations to unlock routes to new medicines. The initiative, anno... More »
LIMA Peruvian health authorities on Saturday reported the first case of the Zika virus having been sexually transmitted in the country, after a resident contracted the disease while traveling in Venezuela and then infected his wife once back in Peru. Zika has ... More »
An experimental once-daily combination hepatitis C treatment being developed by AbbVie Inc demonstrated very high cure rates across a wide range of disease genotypes, according to data presented on Saturday, likely giving the company a more competitive product... More »
ZURICH Roche Holding AG said on Monday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted priority review for atezolizumab for treating people with a specific type of lung cancer. The designation covers treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic ... More »
CHICAGO Scientists in Brazil have uncovered a new brain disorder associated with Zika infections in adults: an autoimmune syndrome called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, or ADEM, that attacks the brain and spinal cord. Zika has already been linked with t... More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday moved to revoke approval of a drug used to treat certain diseases in pigs because it could leave a cancerous residue that may affect human health. The drug, carbadox, is made by Teaneck, New Jersey-based Phibro A... More »
SEOUL Samsung Bioepis Co Ltd, which aims to become a force in the fledgling biosimilar drugs industry, has filed a lawsuit against the originator of the world’s best-selling drug, to stop it blocking the launch of its own version. The unit of South Korea’s Sam... More »
CONAKRY/MONROVIA Guinea will soon vaccinate people who have come into contact with more than 500 men who have recovered from Ebola, a senior health official said, the first time it has vaccinated the contacts of survivors. The decision reflects research that i... More »
CHICAGO U.S. states and cities need to adopt a different mosquito-fighting strategy to battle the species carrying the Zika virus as an outbreak that started in Brazil heads north with warmer weather in the coming weeks, health officials said on Friday. The Wo... More »
LONDON The world’s first life-saving gene therapy for children, developed by Italian scientists and GlaxoSmithKline, has been recommended for approval in Europe, boosting the pioneering technology to fix faulty genes. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said o... More »
LONDON French drugmaker Sanofi has poached one of AstraZeneca’s top scientists to be its new research head in another high-profile departure for the British drugmaker. Sanofi said on Tuesday that Yong-Jun Liu had been appointed as head of research with effect ... More »
U.S. health officials are recommending that women wait at least two months, and men at least six, before attempting to conceive after infection with Zika, a virus linked to thousands of suspected cases of birth defects in Brazil. The new guidance, issued on Fr... More »
(Reuters Health) – U.S. doctors and hospitals throw out almost $3 billion (roughly 2.7 billion euros) in unused cancer drugs each year because the medicines come in supersized single-use packages and excess medicine must be discarded for safety reasons, a rece... More »
SAN JOSE, Calif.,/NEW YORK A federal jury on Thursday ordered Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O) to pay Merck & Co (MRK.N) $200 million in damages for infringing two Merck patents related to a lucrative cure for hepatitis C. The damages award is far less than the $2... More »
BOSTON Billionaire investor William Ackman, whose hedge fund is one of the biggest investors in drug company Valeant, has been asked to supply information to U.S. legislators probing price hikes in the pharmaceutical industry. Ackman told investors in his Pers... More »
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI Shares in the Indian units of U.S.-based drugmakers Pfizer (PFE.N) (PFIZ.NS) and Abbott Laboratories (ABT.N) (ABOT.NS) fell as much as 5 percent on Monday after authorities imposed a ban on their codeine-based cough syrups, saying they posed a... More »
NEW DELHI U.S.-pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories’ India unit (ABT.N) (ABOT.NS) will comply with all legal requirements of a government order that bans more than 300 combination drugs in the country, a company spokesman said on Monday. India banned 344 d... More »
MUMBAI A powerful antibiotic combination that is marketed in India by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories is among 344 drug combinations that have been banned by the Indian health authorities. A Reuters investigation revealed in December that a unit ... More »
LONDON As the world focuses on Zika’s rapid advance in the Americas, experts warn the virus that originated in Africa is just one of a growing number of continent-jumping diseases carried by mosquitoes threatening swathes of humanity. The battle against the in... More »
U.S. health regulators said a genetically engineered mosquito being used in the fight against Zika will not have a significant impact on the environment, possibly paving the way for the technique to be used in the country. The self-limiting strain of the Aedes... More »
MUMBAI India has given private assurances that it will not grant licences allowing local firms to override patents and make cheap copies of drugs by big Western drugmakers, a U.S. business advocacy group said. The comments were revealed in a submission last mo... More »
NEW YORK Spending on prescription drugs is projected to have risen to $457 billion in 2015 and will likely continue to grow as a percentage of overall healthcare spending, a U.S. government health agency said on Tuesday. The agency also proposed a test program... More »
SHANGHAI China’s drug regulator said it would accelerate approvals of new medicines, long a headache for pharmaceutical firms who complain it takes too long to get drugs to market. The China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) said in a statement published on ... More »
CHICAGO A study of nine pregnant women from the United States who traveled to countries where the Zika virus was circulating shows a greater-than-expected number of fetal infections and brain abnormalities, U.S. health officials said on Friday. Two of the wome... More »
Pregnant women should consider not traveling to the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil due to the risk of Zika virus infection, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. CDC also said women considering becoming pregnant, and their male part... More »
U.S. health officials are investigating 14 reports of the Zika virus that may been transmitted through sex, including to several pregnant women, raising new questions about the role sexual transmission is playing in the growing outbreak. In two of the suspecte... More »
BRASILIA World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan said on Tuesday Brazil is doing a good job tackling the Zika virus and ensuring that the Olympic games it will host in August will be safe for athletes and visitors. Chan said Brazil’s gov... More »
The following timeline charts the origin and spread of the Zika virus from its discovery nearly 70 years ago: 1947 – Scientists researching yellow fever in Uganda’s Zika Forest identify the virus in a rhesus monkey 1948 – Virus recovered from Aedes africanus m... More »
Global health officials are racing to better understand the Zika virus behind a major outbreak that began in Brazil last year and has since spread to many countries in the Americas. The following are some questions and answers about the virus and current outbr... More »
LONDON Scientists in Britain have found how drug-resistant bacteria build and maintain a defensive wall — a discovery that paves the way for the development of new drugs to break through the barrier and kill the often deadly “superbugs”. In recent decades, bac... More »
NEW YORK The United States Olympic Committee told U.S. sports federations that athletes and staff concerned for their health over the Zika virus should consider not going to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in August. The message was delivered in a conference call i... More »
NEW YORK The tumble in share prices for biotechnology stocks has created some buying opportunities, with drugmakers Celgene Corp (CELG.O) and Gilead Sciences (GILD.O) poised for a 30 percent rise over the next year, Barron’s said. Both companies currently rely... More »
PARIS Travelers coming back from any outbreak zones of the Zika virus will need to wait at least 28 days before giving blood to avoid any risk of transmission, French Health Minister Marisol Touraine said on Sunday. Zika, which is rapidly spreading through the... More »
MANCHESTER, N.H. Two Republican U.S. presidential hopefuls said on Saturday they would implement quarantines of travelers if necessary to stop the spread of the Zika virus. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who garnered international attention in 2014 when h... More »
PERTH – Australia will intensify testing for the Zika virus in Queensland state where Aedes mosquitoes are found, authorities said on Saturday, adding that two new cases among local residents were the result of travel to affected countries. Queensland’s govern... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO One major hurdle is thwarting efforts to measure the extent of the Zika epidemic and its suspected links to thousands of birth defects in Brazil: accurate diagnosis of a virus that still confounds blood tests. Genetic tests and clinical symptoms... More »
RECIFE, Brazil For scores of women in the epicenter of the Zika outbreak in Brazil, the joy of pregnancy has given way to fear. In the sprawling coastal city of Recife, panic has struck maternity wards since Zika – a mosquito-borne virus first detected in the ... More »
Rio de Janeiro Last January, long lines formed outside health clinics in Recife, a city in Brazil’s northeast hit hard in recent years by outbreaks of dengue, a painful tropical disease. Doctors were on guard because federal health officials and the World Heal... More »
Companies and scientists are racing to create a Zika vaccine as concern grows over the mosquito-borne virus that has been linked to severe birth defects and is spreading quickly through the Americas. Zika is now present in 23 countries and territories in the A... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama spoke on Friday with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff about the spread of the Zika virus in the Western Hemisphere, the White House said. “The leaders agreed on the importance of collaborative efforts to deepen our know... More »
Health insurer Anthem Inc (ANTM.N), which is in the process of buying smaller rival Cigna Corp (CI.N), reported a 6.3 percent rise in quarterly revenue as more people enrolled in its Medicaid plans. Anthem, which operates Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in more t... More »
CHICAGO/WASHINGTON President Barack Obama on Tuesday called for the rapid development of tests, vaccines and treatments to fight the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects and could spread to the United States in warmer months.... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday called for the rapid development of tests, vaccines and treatments to fight the Zika virus, following a briefing on the spread of the mosquito-transmitted disease, the White House said. The World Health Organiz... More »
WASHINGTON A Virginia resident who traveled outside the United States has tested positive for the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus, state health officials said on Tuesday. The adult resident had recently traveled to a country where Zika virus transmission was o... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO As Rio de Janeiro prepares to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors for upcoming Carnival festivities and the Olympic Games in August, the city is scrambling to expel one unwelcome new arrival: the Zika virus. It will be an uphill battle. Zi... More »
RENNES, France A man left brain dead after a drug trial in northwest France died on Sunday, said the hospital where he was being treated. The Rennes hospital said in a statement that five other volunteers were in stable condition after they were admitted last ... More »
LONDON Drugmaker Shire Plc clinched its six-month pursuit of Baxalta International Inc on Monday by agreeing a $32 billion cash and stock offer that will make it one of the world’s leading rare disease specialists. The London-listed group, which first approach... More »
PARIS Sanofi boosted its presence in cancer research on Monday by signing two deals with biotech companies worth up to $1.2 billion, as the French drugmaker plays catch-up with rivals in the hot research field. Shares in French biotech group Innate Pharma, one... More »
Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical entrepreneur facing U.S. charges of securities fraud, has said he had been the target of legal authorities for his much-criticized drug-price hikes and his over-the-top public persona, the Wall Street Journal reported. Shkrel... More »
MUMBAI Shares in India’s largest drugmaker, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, skidded more than 7 percent on Monday after U.S. regulators warned of standards violations at a key plant in the latest blow to India’s generic drug industry. The warning comes bare... More »
Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical executive facing U.S. charges of securities fraud, lost control of his Twitter account to hackers on Sunday, hours after he took to Twitter to plead his innocence, his spokesman said. “It was hacked,” Craig Stevens, a spokesm... More »
ZURICH Drug companies have taken too great a share of the benefits of new drug treatments but are moving to different models involving sharing more with health systems and insurers, the head of Swiss-based Novartis was quoted saying on Sunday. “We need to tran... More »
