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A portable device may allow doctors to create single doses of biopharmaceutical medications on demand, potentially speeding the treatment of diseases that include diabetes and cancer...The portable production system was developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with funding from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, expecting the device could be useful for the battlefield and remote areas to produce treatments immediately at the point of care...The system...can currently produce two biologic drugs from a single yeast strain in the device, creating near-single-dose production in less than 24 hours with limited infrastructure...The production system uses a programmable strain of yeast, Pichia pastoris, which produces two proteins used for disease therapy...The strain of yeast, which can grow at very high densities when exposed to carbon sources, expressed recombinant human growth hormone when exposed to estrogen β-estradiol and expressed the protein interferon when exposed to methanol...The potential use for the device is significant, as it can be used for everything from treatments on a battlefield where immediate care is required to prevention of a disease outbreak in a remote village...

Several teams of scientists are racing to develop a vaccine for the Zika virus. But what if a drug that already exists could stop an infection in its tracks?...According to new research, it’s not a totally crazy idea...A group of researchers has identified two dozen Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs that have shown some ability to block Zika from infecting human cells in the lab, according to a paper published...in the journal Cell Host & Microbe. Some of these drugs — which treat infections, cancers, and even depression— also showed potential to prevent infection in certain cells tied to fetal defects in pregnant women...the next steps in testing the drugs against Zika, and added that scientists should consider using some of the drugs together because they work in different ways...The candidate drugs don’t all share certain characteristics...While some have shown past hints that they can fight flaviviruses — the virus family that includes Zika — others had never before shown any antiviral ability, according to the study...

Poor medication adherence can lead to reduced treatment benefits, even death in some cases. Implants are being used by some medical professionals to increase the likelihood of patients “following the doctor’s orders.” Specifically, some clinicians are using these devices in individuals with an addiction to opioids...Even though buprenorphine can be used to treat opioid addiction, its efficacy is limited by the potential lack of adherence to daily, sublingual doses. To...increase...compliance among patients undergoing buprenorphine treatment...the FDA approved the first buprenorphine implant for the treatment of opioid dependence...Called Probuphine, the treatment provides a low-level dose of buprenorphine for six months...This treatment option may also be considered an effective relapse prevention tool. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai researchers found...

Two sides of one coin will keep diabetes drug sales growing--big time--through 2025. The disease is growing fast around the world, and treatment arbiters advise a more aggressive approach to blood-sugar control...Combine those two drivers, and diabetes will account for almost $60 billion in 2025 sales across 9 major global markets, GlobalData analysts say in a recent report...But this rising tide of sales won’t lift all treatments equally...Best positioned for growth? GLP-1 drugs, they say, which are poised to grow by 12.4% annually through the next decade...Right now, only a small number of patients are actually hitting blood glucose targets of 7% to 7.5% A1C levels...Doctors are pushing harder to hit those goals, so the number of people needing a second or third add-on drug will mushroom over the next 10 years. "[W]e’ll treat these people fairly aggressively" to get to those A1C levels..."[W]e are not going to tolerate people after 8.5% and 9% like we used to."...despite public health campaigns and awareness campaigns, people will "continue to overeat and under-exercise and they are going to see their weight continue to go up, and therefore their need for more medications will go up with it,"...

Humans, and the microbes that live inside us, could be the source of the next generation of antibiotics...German researchers just discovered an antibiotic (lugdunin) produced by bacteria (S. lugdunensis) that inhabit our noses. This new antibiotic can kill MRSA (methicillin resistant S. aureus), the poster child for drug resistance and the culprit behind the most pernicious hospital-acquired staph infections..."Our study can help to understand what we can do to eradicate these pathogens from the microbiota of healthy people," said Andreas Peschel, lead author of the study, published...in Nature...

J&J has thrown open its R&D doors — to all comers. Will this uber-open-access strategy work? ...Just five years ago, one of the last places one would have looked for innovation at Johnson & Johnson was in its Merryfield Road lab in La Jolla, Calif...The R&D facility for the healthcare giant, No. 103 on Fortune’s Global 500 list, had become something of a scientific wasteland...These days, the gleaming, state-of-the-art space is teeming with entrepreneurial spirit and cutting-edge science. What’s odd, though, is that these researchers toiling away within J&J’s walls—and making use of J&J’s abundant resources—do not work for the company. Nor do the findings or the discoveries they produce there belong to J&J. Some of these drug scientists even receive funding from J&J’s competitors. As for the venerable, 130-year-old company that’s paying for all this largesse, it claims it wants nothing more out of the arrangement than for its tenants—all life science start-ups—to succeed.

Between 2015 and 2025, according a new article in Health Affairs, growth in U.S. health spending is projected to increase about 5.8% on average — a number that surpasses growth in the gross domestic product by 1.3 percentage points. And in 2016...the...national health spending per capita will surpass $10,000 for the first time...Despite the cost per capita, aggregate national spending growth, Medicaid spending growth is expected to slow this year, to 5.3% from an average of 10.8% in 2014-2015, with an expected from in prescription spending growth to 4.9% from the 17.7% growth seen in 2015. Private payers will also see steady low spending growth of 4.9%, down from 5.1% in 2015. Medicare, on the other hand, is expected to see its spending growth rise this year to 5.2%, an increase from the 4.6% growth it saw last year...The report expects prescription drugs to have a smaller impact on health spending in the next 10 years than they did in 2014 and 2015, which it attributes to an expected drop in the number of approved new drugs, and the anticipated increase in availability of biosimilars.

U.S. and British officials announced an ambitious collaboration...designed to accelerate the discovery and development of new antibiotics in the fight against one of the modern era’s greatest health threats: antibiotic resistance...CARB-X, for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator, will create one of the world’s largest public-private partnerships focused on preclinical discovery and development of new antimicrobial products...The undertaking includes two agencies within the U.S. Health and Human Services Department that focus on biomedical research and Britain’s Wellcome Trust, a London-based global biomedical research charity. It also includes academic, industry and other nongovernmental organizations...The partnership is committed to providing $44 million in funding in the first year and up to $350 million in new funds over five years to increase the number of antibiotics in the drug-development pipeline. The ultimate goal...is to move promising antibiotic candidates through the critical early stages so they can attract enough private or public investment for advanced development and win approval by U.S. and British regulatory agencies...

Dog as man’s best friend...Now a small startup in Philadelphia is making the saying applicable to the pharmaceutical and drug development world...Drugs that are developed by pharmaceutical companies are...tested first in animals to evaluate their safety and how they interact with living tissue. But the typical testing method is to take a healthy animal, give them a certain disease, test the drug, therapy, or medical device, and then kill them...The One Health Company is trying something new by finding dogs (and cats) with naturally occurring diseases that are also present in humans, like bone cancer, and testing new drugs or therapies on them. The goal is two-fold: Provide pro-bono care for pet owners to heal their own pets, while facilitating bringing new drugs to market by collecting data for pharmaceutical companies...The...approach...is notably different. Pets remain with their families, diseases are never induced, and putting a pet down is never considered an option in any of their clinical trials. Families caring for their sick pets as they undergo these trials collect data, via smartphone, on their pets’ behavior and habits using proprietary clinical trial management software...

Worldwide, less than half of Type 2 diabetes patients are taking their medicines in an "optimal" manner, according to a new report, leaving plenty of room for improvement for stakeholders seeking to reduce the billions of dollars associated with poor drug adherence...the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics said "sub-optimal" drug adherence is resulting in a "significant economic and societal burden" plus "avoidable" disease complications for patients...less than 40% of patients around the world are fully complying with their treatment instructions...ready to listen to the suggestions are health officials who've been seeking ways to pay for new, groundbreaking medicines without breaking the bank. Cutting down on avoidable costs would seem to make an approachable target in that effort...