Category:

Americans now view big pharma with more distaste than any other industry, according to a new Gallup poll...Just 27% of Americans regarded the pharmaceutical industry positively, compared with 58% who hold a negative view, the poll found. That resulted in a net rating of minus 31, compared with plus 4 just five years ago...Even the federal government — which many Americans love to hate — has a better reputation than the drug industry, which now ranks the lowest out of 25 industries considered by Gallup. More than 1,500 Americans living in all 50 states and the District Columbia were included in the group's poll...READ MORE

New system could free bench chemists from time-consuming tasks, may help inspire new molecules...Guided by artificial intelligence and powered by a robotic platform, a system developed by MIT researchers moves a step closer to automating the production of small molecules that could be used in medicine, solar energy, and polymer chemistry…The researchers tested the full system by creating 15 different medicinal small molecules of different synthesis complexity, with processes taking anywhere between two hours for the simplest creations to about 68 hours for manufacturing multiple compounds…The team synthesized a variety of compounds: aspirin and the antibiotic secnidazole in back-to-back processes; the painkiller lidocaine and the antianxiety drug diazepam in back-to-back processes using a common feedstock of reagents; the blood thinner warfarin and the Parkinson’s disease drug safinamide, to show how the software could design compounds with similar molecular components but differing 3-D structures; and a family of five ACE inhibitor drugs and a family of four nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs...READ MORE

The MD Anderson Cancer Center said it decided to fire three scientists who, among other allegations, failed to disclose international collaborators. Two of them resigned...in connection with an investigation into possible foreign attempts to take advantage of its federally funded research...Federal officials said they found that some researchers had shared with Beijing intellectual property and pilfered confidential information from grant applications. Other researchers had failed to disclose that they were receiving money from foreign sources while being funded by the N.I.H...Federal officials have said that some scientists have run “shadow laboratories” in China while conducting N.I.H.-funded research in the United States. This month, the N.I.H. said 55 institutions across the country are investigating such concerns...READ MORE

Many more Americans may be getting opioids for their pets, and veterinarians appear to be prescribing increasingly potent versions of these drugs to animals...The researchers examined data on opioid tablets and patches dispensed or prescribed by 134 veterinarians at an academic small-animal hospital in Philadelphia from 2007 to 2017. Over the decade, the amount of opioids used for creatures like rabbits, birds and reptiles surged 41 percent even though visits to the hospital increased by only 13 percent...

With greater patient access to CBD, pharmacists will need to be prepared to address potential drug interactions to help patients use these products safely. The FDA has issued numerous warning letters instructing various manufacturers to halt production of OTC CBD products since 2016...Regarding interactions, in vitro studies have illustrated multiple potential drug interactions for CBD. The lack of standardized products somewhat limits the ability to make definitive statements from available research, but there is evidence that CBD is an inhibitor of many CYP450 enzymes including 2D6, 3A4, and 3A5, as well as a potent p-glycoprotein inhibitor...Research also suggests CBD use enhances the effect of opiates, and exhibits other interactions with barbiturates, fluoxetine, sedatives, and antihistamines, as well as having synergistic effects with alcohol...READ MORE

The 2014 study found that between 1999 and 2010, states with medical cannabis laws had a nearly 25% lower average rate of opioid overdose deaths than states without such laws. Much has changed since 2010 — 34 states have now legalized medical marijuana and the number of opioid overdose deaths was six times higher in 2017 than it was in 1999 — so Stanford University researchers decided to replicate the original study...But when they expanded the time frame through 2017, the association between medical marijuana laws and opioid overdose deaths reversed: States with medical marijuana laws had average rates of opioid overdose deaths that were nearly 23% higher than those without these laws...READ MORE

Most prescription drugs contain at least one inactive ingrediant (sic) capable of causing adverse reactions, according to a new study...Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology found these medications to contain lactose, peanut oil, gluten or chemical dyes...The team analyzed 42,052 different oral medications and found that nearly 93 percent of them contained at least one inactive ingredient that could cause adverse reactions in certain conditions, such as peanut oil, lactose or dyes. And other medications included ingredients that people were sensitive to, including gluten and some kinds of sugar compounds...READ MORE

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said...that it will move ahead with a long-delayed expansion of its marijuana research program, in a sign that the Trump administration’s hostility to the drug may be waning as a growing number of states have legalized its use...The DEA said it would roll out new guidelines that would allow more growers to produce marijuana for scientific and medical research…READ MORE

The company (Intel) says algorithms can simplify trials and accelerate time to market for new drugs...Efforts to implement artificial intelligence, advanced analytics and machine learning could have multiple applications for the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries...The report, “Harnessing AI and Analytics to Drive Digital Transformation,” comes as health systems across the country are working to deploy advanced data analytics to provide faster care for their patients...AI-based algorithms can optimize clinical trial design by eliminating testing criteria that increases time but has a minimal impact on the overall effectiveness of what is being tested...READ MORE

Even medicines that are years past their expiration date and haven’t always been kept in strict climate-controlled conditions may still retain their original potency, a small study suggests...That is good news for people working in remote areas of the world where sometimes an expired medication is the only one available and the alternative is having no way to treat a serious illness...This date is not necessarily the point at which the drug becomes ineffective or dangerous, and for many medications, this window may be far longer than the usual two-to-three-year expiry date...The study team tested the stability of five expired drugs that had been returned from the British Antarctic Survey...They tested five types of drug, all one to four years past expiration, and compared these to fresh samples of the same medications to see if the expired versions were chemically stable and retained their active ingredient...Researchers found that all of the tested drugs were stable, and would, theoretically, have still been effective...