Author: Peter

After being abandoned as too ambitious in 1969, global plans to eliminate malaria are back on the agenda, with financial backing from the world's richest couple, Bill and Melinda Gates...aim to eradicate malaria by 2040 by doubling funding over the next decade to support the roll out of new products to tackle rising drug resistance against the disease...Six innovations scientists are working on are:

1. New insecticides: Mosquitoes are becoming resistant to insecticides used to spray inside homes and in bed nets.
2. A single-dose cure: A pill that would wipe out all parasites in the body could be available by 2019, the Gates Foundation says.
3. Insecticide-treated wall liners: Scientists hope insecticide-treated wall liners, which look like wallpaper, will be more effective than spraying people's homes with insecticide every three to eight months.
4. Insecticide-embedded clothing: American soldiers have been wearing combat uniforms treated with permethrin, a synthetic insecticide, since 2010 to protect them against insect-borne diseases.
5. A vaccine: This is a big one, given vaccines success in eliminating smallpox, polio and measles in many countries.
6. GM mosquitoes: Scientists have genetically modified mosquitoes by adding genes that block the development of the malaria parasite inside the insect and prevent it from being transmitted to people.

In an embarrassing blow to Merck, a federal court judge...decided that Gilead Sciences does not have to pay $200 million in damages that was recently awarded in a patent dispute because Merck displayed a "pervasive pattern of misconduct."...At issue was testimony from a retired Merck patent attorney, who was found to have "lied" repeatedly when recounting events that took place more than a decade ago concerning patents for hepatitis C compounds...Merck held exploratory talks with another company, Pharmasset, about a collaboration...Merck lawyer, Philippe Durette, intentionally gave false testimony during a deposition and a recent trial about his role in those talks...After spending $11 billion to acquire Pharmasset in 2011, Gilead virtually struck gold when it launched the first of the Pharmasset hepatitis C compounds, called Sovaldi...Merck sought royalties from Gilead, claiming the Pharmasset compounds closely mimicked the hepatitis C compounds it was researching a dozen years ago, when talks with Pharmasset were held...Gilead...is "pleased" by the decision that Merck’s patents are unenforceable against Gilead...Merck’s patents are invalid and unenforceable, and we feel vindicated by today’s decision...

Nevada’s senior citizens’ health and quality of life were again ranked among the lowest nationally in a UnitedHealthcare report released last week, placing 42nd...America’s Health Rankings’ 2016 Senior Report takes into account 35 factors, including senior obesity and smoking rates, prevalence of falls, flu vaccination statistics and senior volunteerism...Nevada’s ranking was dragged down by factors including the state’s excessive drinking rate among seniors — self-reported at 9.2 percent...Nevada also suffers from comparatively low community support expenditures and flu vaccination coverage...The state’s strengths include a low prevalence of falls among seniors and a low rate of preventable hospitalizations among Medicare beneficiaries...Sandra Owens, a UNLV social work professor and expert in senior care, reviewed the report and described it as a good assessment of a state with work to do to improve health care for its elderly and overall populations.

Mike Glaicar, Business Development: Pharmacy Times...(PTNN) This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

A hardy market for imported low-cost prescription drugs has taken root in Florida, nourished by older Americans and tolerant regulators...About 15 storefront businesses across Florida claim to help thousands of customers each year place online orders from pharmacies in Canada and overseas for medicines at prices up to 70 percent off what people pay in the U.S...Federal authorities say the practice is illegal and dangerous because the U.S. has not reviewed the safety of some drugs approved for sale in foreign countries or they could be counterfeit. But since the first storefront opened in 2002 in Delray Beach, Florida, the government has never charged shops or their customers, according to operators and researchers who follow the business...The trade’s surprising survival spotlights both seniors’ continuing difficulties with medication expenses, and how far some people will go to save money...the Bush and Obama administrations have let the imported drug stores stay open...If they clamped down on these storefronts, it would be seen as restricting access to affordable drugs and supporting big bad [drug] corporations...The administration is saying that they are against this as a matter of policy, but programmatically [they] are not doing anything about it...At the time, U.S. Customs and Border Protection was routinely seizing mail-order packages of prescription drugs entering the U.S. from Canada...

Providing genetic test results over the phone to patients at risk for cancer-causing genetic mutations does not cause individuals additional stress and could be an effective way to help reduce costs and access burdens compared with those who receive results in person, a recent study found...While health care providers deliver results for many tests over the phone, results of genetic tests have traditionally been delivered in-person because of the complexity, potential for increased levels of distress, or confusion over what the results could mean...delivering results over phone...does not generate more distress, even for those with positive results and even now that we are using multi-gene testing...those who received their results over the phone had fewer barriers in accessing genetic counseling services compared with patients given their results in-person.

Federal prosecutors in New York have filed additional criminal charges against a pharmaceutical executive who separately was heavily criticized for raising the price of a lifesaving malaria medication...A new indictment filed Friday in Brooklyn says Martin Shkreli and his former attorney Evan Greebel schemed to defraud potential investors of his former drug company Retrophin Inc...They say the two allocated company stock to seven employees to conceal Shkreli's ownership of it...Shkreli previously pleaded not guilty to charges he lost investors' money through bad trades and looted the pharmaceutical company to pay them back.

One of the most successful research enterprises funded by the NIH, the Clinical Research Center program, is dying, its highly productive life cut short...In 1910, Rockefeller University in New York built basic research labs around a suite of 20 or so hospital beds...this...translational research...using patient care to inform research and research to improve patient care...CRCs have provided human laboratories where diseases are studied and new treatments developed and tested. The CRCs include not only specialized inpatient beds and outpatient facilities, but a highly skilled group of research nurses, dietitians, research coordinators, technicians, and physicians who study patients with complex disorders...The decision to cut off funding for the CRCs comes as a surprise...the NIH leadership has ruled that funding...of the CRCs will no longer be permitted...This defunding is likely to lead to...abandonment of this vital resource for clinical research. The loss of the trained clinical nurses will be particularly damaging. The study of patients by academic physicians who intimately understand disease processes has long been under assault. Physician scientists, particularly those who focus on clinical research, have been marginalized in grant competitions for decades. The NIH’s unjustified decision to defund the CRCs further imperils their work...

Synthetic designer drugs, especially synthetic opioids like fentanyl implicated in the death of pop star Prince, pose an "unprecedented" threat for U.S. overdoses and deaths, especially among youth...Drug Enforcement Administration has been cracking down on synthetic drugs since they began gaining popularity in 2010. But because each newly designed drug needs to be separately banned through a "clunky and cumbersome" process, the problem continues to spiral, DEA head Chuck Rosenberg told a U.S. Senate committee...For every one substance we’ve controlled, legislatively or administratively, there are 11 more out there that are uncontrolled...Rosenberg testified that the DEA has seen a particularly alarming rise in illicit use of the fentanyl...More than 11 million people illegally consume prescription painkillers for non-medical purposes each year, and overdoses are likely to increase as fentanyl is introduced to that market...

Sixty-seven domain names of commercial websites involved in the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit and prescription drugs had seizure orders executed against them, according to an announcement by the US Department of Justice. The federal government now has custody of the seized domains. When visiting the sites, users will see a seizure banner indicating that the domain name has been seized for violation of federal laws against smuggling and trademark misuse...Individuals who have an interest in the seized domain names have a period of time after the Notice of Seizure to file a petition with a federal court and additional time after the notice to contest the forfeiture.