Testosterone Drugs Raise Heart Risk in $1 Billion Market

Testosterone Drugs Raise Heart Risk in $1 Billion Market

Testosterone therapy, a $1.6 billion market for companies including AbbVie Inc. and Eli Lilly (LLY) & Co., boosted the odds of having a heart attack, stroke or dying by 29 percent in one of the first studies weighing the supplement’s cardiovascular risk. The findings came from a review of 8,709 men treated in the U.S. Veterans Affairs health system, many with underlying illnesses including prior heart attacks and diabetes. While the study didn’t identify a reason for the risk, testosterone is known to worsen sleep apnea and affect blood platelets, linked to atherosclerosis and coronary plaque, the authors said. Read more of this post

Investors Binge on Shire after positive results from trials of its drug Vyvanse in treating binge-eating disorder

Investors Binge on Shire

U.K. Pharma Company Now Must Sustain Excitement

HELEN THOMAS

Nov. 5, 2013 10:58 a.m. ET

Shire SHP.LN +1.35% PLC has certainly got investors’ attention. Positive results from trials of its drug Vyvanse in treating binge-eating disorder gave shares in the U.K. specialty pharma company their latest boost Tuesday. The stock is up 17% this year, hitting all-time highs. The next challenge for Shire, best known for its attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs, is to sustain the excitement. Read more of this post

Drug pricing challenges diabetes king Novo Nordisk

Drug pricing challenges diabetes king Novo Nordisk

7:56am EST

By Ben Hirschler and Mette Fraende

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Drug pricing is emerging as a key challenge for Novo Nordisk, the world’s biggest insulin producer, whose previously unstoppable growth has started to flag, according to the Danish firm’s chief executive. Lars Sorensen is certain of one thing: the number of potential customers for his products is going to keep on rising as a global obesity epidemic tips more people into type 2 diabetes in the West and many developing nations. But he has a mounting fight on his hands when it comes to securing a good price for insulin and other diabetes treatments from cost-conscious reimbursement authorities around the world. Read more of this post

Hepatitis C, a Silent Killer, Meets Its Match

November 4, 2013

Hepatitis C, a Silent Killer, Meets Its Match

By ANDREW POLLACK

Determined to get rid of the hepatitis C infection that was slowly destroying his liver, Arthur Rubens tried one experimental treatment after another. None worked, and most brought side effects, like fever, insomnia, depression, anemia and a rash that “felt like your skin was on fire.” But this year, Dr. Rubens, a professor of management at Florida Gulf Coast University, entered a clinical trial testing a new pill against hepatitis C. Taking it was “a piece of cake.” And after three months of treatment, the virus was cleared from his body at last. Read more of this post

Herbal Supplements Are Often Not What They Seem; DNA tests show that many pills labeled as healing herbs are little more than powdered rice and weeds

November 3, 2013

Herbal Supplements Are Often Not What They Seem

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

Americans spend an estimated $5 billion a year on unproven herbal supplements that promise everything from fighting off colds to curbing hot flashes and boosting memory. But now there is a new reason for supplement buyers to beware: DNA tests show that many pills labeled as healing herbs are little more than powdered rice and weeds. Using a test called DNA barcoding, a kind of genetic fingerprinting that has also been used to help uncover labeling fraud in the commercial seafood industry, Canadian researchers tested 44 bottles of popular supplements sold by 12 companies. They found that many were not what they claimed to be, and that pills labeled as popular herbs were often diluted — or replaced entirely — by cheap fillers like soybean, wheat and rice. Read more of this post

Mechanical Hearts Beat Death for Transplant List Patients

Mechanical Hearts Beat Death for Transplant List Patients

Scott Morgan wrote off the pain on his left side as an old sports injury, never imagining it was a sign his heart was failing. When he finally went to the hospital last year, he was shocked to learn he needed a transplant. With fewer than 2,500 donated hearts that become available each year in the U.S. for transplant, Morgan’s doctors offered him another option. He got a mechanical pump placed inside his chest to keep him alive. Read more of this post

Simple Tech Fix Could Allow Millions to Hear

Simple Tech Fix Could Allow Millions to Hear

A few weeks ago, I had an amazing experience, one that most people take for granted but that for more and more of us in the baby-boom demographic is becoming impossible. I sat in a large auditorium and listened to — and heard — a speaker on a podium. In fact, I listened to many speakers over the course of a two-day weekend, and I heard every word. Read more of this post

Roche to Pay Polyphor Up to $548 Million for ‘Superbug’ Antibiotic

Roche to Pay Up to $548 Million for ‘Superbug’ Antibiotic

Roche Holding AG (ROG) agreed to pay as much as 500 million Swiss francs ($548 million) for the rights to an experimental antibiotic to target a drug-resistant “superbug” that is a leading cause of fatal bacterial infections in hospitals. Polyphor Ltd., the Allschwil, Switzerland-based developer of the antibiotic, will receive 35 million francs up front, and is eligible for further payments of as much as 465 million francs if the product meets development, regulatory and commercial goals, Roche said in an e-mailed statement today. Roche also will pay royalties on sales, the Basel, Switzerland-based company said. Read more of this post

Funding Dries Up for Medical Startups; Companies Are Squeezed by Venture-Capital Drought

Funding Dries Up for Medical Startups

Companies Are Squeezed by Venture-Capital Drought

JOSEPH WALKER 

Nov. 4, 2013 7:58 p.m. ET

The medical-device industry, struggling to adapt to a thriftier health-care system, is getting squeezed by a venture-capital drought. Investment in the medical-device and equipment industry is on pace to fall to $2.14 billion this year, down more than 40% from 2007 and the sharpest drop among the top five industry recipients of venture funding, according to an analysis of data compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. Venture money received by the biotechnology sector declined 28% over the same period, while software startups recorded a 75% increase. Read more of this post

Diabetes’ Cold Sweat Seen Ended With Artificial Pancreas

Diabetes’ Cold Sweat Seen Ended With Artificial Pancreas

Thomas Brobson remembers the first morning he awoke after being equipped with an artificial pancreas. After years of fitful nights, he slept soundly and opened his eyes feeling great. No waking up at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat with extreme low blood sugar. And no having to counteract those effects by getting something to eat in the middle of the night. Read more of this post

Biotech stock boom risks becoming bubble

November 4, 2013 9:55 am

Biotech stock boom risks becoming bubble

By Arash Massoudi and Michael Mackenzie in New York

In this year’s record-breaking bull run for US stocks, one industry in particular has been a standout performer. Biotechnology is on course for its best year since the dotcom boom. With stock market bargains fast diminishing, investors are betting that a number of “dream stocks” will deliver breakthrough medical treatments. But the question now is whether that prospect of future medical advances justifies a further run in shares – or whether the sector has simply become overheated. Read more of this post

Teva chief leaves as drugmaker struggles to take its medicine

October 31, 2013 9:49 pm

Teva chief leaves as drugmaker struggles to take its medicine

By Andrew Jack

Wanted: chief executive with global vision, ideas for developing new medicines, experience in cost-cutting, ability to cope with a hands-on board, no desire to be a director and a willingness to move to Israel.

When Jeremy Levin headed into a meeting with the board of Teva on Tuesday at its headquarters in Petach Tikva, he sought to end months of tensions by winning their full confidence. Instead, they ended up negotiating his departure and scrambling to begin the search for a replacement. Read more of this post

Reckitt Heroin-Abuse Drug Seen Luring Shire: Real M&A

Reckitt Heroin-Abuse Drug Seen Luring Shire: Real M&A

Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc (RB/)’s heroin addiction treatment could tempt drugmakers from Shire Plc (SHP) to Actavis Plc (ACT) to bid for the company’s pharmaceuticals unit. Shire has been on the hunt for deals to ease reliance on its best-seller Vyvanse for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The Dublin-based drugmaker could be a logical buyer for the unit because it has managed competition with generics before and is adept at handling complex U.S. rules to curb illicit use of prescription medicines, Liberum Capital Ltd. said. While generic variants of Reckitt Benckiser’s Suboxone were introduced this year, the drug still dominates the U.S. market and a new injectable treatment is under development. Read more of this post

Lawmakers Want to Stop Fee-for-Service Medicare Payments

Lawmakers Want to Stop Fee-for-Service Medicare Payments

The chairmen of the U.S. House Ways and Means and the Senate Finance committees want to phase out the way Medicare pays doctors for their services. They’re proposing a gradual change to a new system along with a pay freeze and incentives to give up fee-for-service billing. “Enough with the quick fixes. Our proposal is for a new physician payment system that rewards value over volume,” Senator Max Baucus of Montana said in a statement. “It will go a long way in improving the efficiency and quality of care for America’s seniors.” Read more of this post

Valeant is taking over profitable market niches that its mega-cap competitors ignore

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2013

Valeant Pharmaceuticals: Stock Could Climb 42%

By TERESA RIVAS | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

Valeant is taking over profitable market niches that its mega-cap competitors ignore.

Hefty research and development expenses, patent cliffs, and slow growth levels are well-known knocks against big pharmaceutical companies. They’re all problems that Valeant Pharmaceuticals International (ticker: VRX) doesn’t have. Over the past five years CEO Michael Pearson has transformed the specialty pharmaceutical company with a series of savvy acquisitions, diversifying its product mix to lower patent and approval risk, and expanding in fast-growing emerging markets. Yet investors can still buy the stock for about 12 times forward earnings—on par or cheaper than other big drug makers. Read more of this post

A medical matryoshka doll: Three-layered chemical bombs may destroy previously untreatable cancers

A medical matryoshka doll: Three-layered chemical bombs may destroy previously untreatable cancers

Nov 2nd 2013 |From the print edition

TRIPLE-NEGATIVE breast cancer is one of the nastiest there is. It is hard to treat and almost always fatal. One reason treatments tend to fail is that its cells are armed with molecular pumps which remove anti-cancer drugs that manage to get inside them. But Paula Hammond, a chemical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thinks she can deal with this defence using triple-layered chemical bombs a few billionths of a metre across. The layers, somewhat reminiscent of a Russian matryoshka doll, first sabotage the pumps and then deliver a poisonous payload when the cells are thus unprotected. Read more of this post

A decade after SARS swept through the world and killed more than 750 people, scientists have made a troubling discovery: A very close cousin of the SARS virus lives in bats and it can likely jump directly to people

Study: Bat-to-Human Leap Likely for SARS-Like Virus

GAUTAM NAIK

Updated Oct. 30, 2013 7:07 p.m. ET

A decade after SARS swept through the world and killed more than 750 people, scientists have made a troubling discovery: A very close cousin of the SARS virus lives in bats and it can likely jump directly to people. The findings create new fears about the emergence of diseases like SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. The virus spread quickly from person to person in 2003 and had a mortality rate of at least 9%. Worries of a severe pandemic led the World Health Organization to issue an emergency travel advisory. Read more of this post

Research for AIDS Cure Advances as HIV Fought in Monkeys

Research for AIDS Cure Advances as HIV Fought in Monkeys

Antibodies derived from the blood of HIV-infected people suppressed the virus in the blood of monkeys in two studies that suggest the experimental approach may improve AIDS therapy or point the way toward a cure. One study showed that a single injection of antibodies reduced the simian, or monkey, version of HIV to undetectable levels in three to seven days — much faster than regular AIDS drugs — and the effect lasted for almost two months. The research, led by Dan Barouch, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, is published today online by the journal Nature. Read more of this post

Teva, the world’s largest generic-drug maker, have plunged 42% since their 2010 peak. Now the man hired to turn the company around just 18 months ago is gone, and analysts say it may be tough to find a replacement

Teva Seen Struggling in CEO Search as Board Under Fire

The shares of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA), the world’s largest generic-drug maker, have plunged 42 percent since their 2010 peak. Now the man hired to turn the company around just 18 months ago is gone, and analysts say it may be tough to find a replacement. Jeremy Levin, a former Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. executive, joined Israel-based Teva as chief executive officer with a reputation as one of the industry’s top dealmakers. A rift over the company’s future with Phillip Frost, the U.S. billionaire who is board chairman and Teva’s biggest individual shareholder, led to Levin’s ouster, opening questions about the ability of a high-powered replacement to manage Teva going forward. Read more of this post

Doctors Use Euphemism for $2.4 Billion in Needless Stents

Doctors Use Euphemism for $2.4 Billion in Needless Stents

The American College of Cardiology is changing its guidelines for when implanting coronary stents is appropriate — by banishing the term “inappropriate.” Next year, the main U.S. heart-doctor group will remove the word it has used since 2009 to describe cases where people don’t need the metal-mesh tubes in their blood vessels. The label has become a liability in treatment disputes with insurers and regulators, said Robert Hendel, who led the effort that updated the wording. “The term ‘inappropriate’ caused such a visceral response,” said Hendel, a cardiologist at the University of Miami. “A lot of regulators and payers were saying, ‘If it’s inappropriate, why should we pay for it, and why should it be done at all?’” The cardiology group replaced the “Inappropriate” label with “Rarely Appropriate.” Another category — cases in which there’s medical doubt — will switch from “Uncertain” to “May be Appropriate.” Read more of this post

Boston Scientific’s Nerve Device Lowers Blood Pressure

Boston Scientific’s Nerve Device Lowers Blood Pressure

Boston Scientific Corp. (BSX)’s Vessix hypertension treatment significantly lowered blood pressure levels in patients with a hard-to-treat form of the condition that doesn’t respond well to drug therapy, a study found. The treatment, which silences overactive nerves in the renal arteries that contribute to hypertension, reduced systolic blood pressure by 24.6 millimeters of mercury after six months. The benefit grew with time, yielding a 29.6 mm/Hg reduction after a year, the study presented yesterday at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics conference in San Francisco found. Read more of this post

Fasting at Least Twice a Week Seen as Alzheimer’s Hedge

Fasting at Least Twice a Week Seen as Alzheimer’s Hedge

For the past year, Stuart Adams has been fasting twice a week. While he has lost 15 pounds, the real reason he’s depriving himself is to stave off brain disorders including schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. “There’s a virulent strain of madness running through my family, and I reckoned my chances of going down that route were pretty high,” said Adams, 43, a freelance translator and interpreter in London who learned of a possible link between Alzheimer’s and diet while watching a BBC documentary last year. “Anything that could help with that was of great interest.” Read more of this post

Kidney Disease Costs Medicare $41 Billion a Year and Yet Often Goes Undetected; More screening is urged for all Americans age 60 and older – not just those with diabetes and hypertension

Kidney Disease Costs Medicare $41 Billion a Year and Yet Often Goes Undetected

More screening is urged for all Americans age 60 and older – not just those with diabetes and hypertension

Updated Oct. 28, 2013 11:12 p.m. ET

Kidney disease is fast becoming one of the most dangerous and costly health threats in the U.S., and new guidelines recommend screening for all Americans over 60. Laura Landro and Joslin Diabetes Center Kidney Services Chief Robert Stanton discuss. 

Doctors often don’t test for it, and patients may have no symptoms until they are in crisis. Yet kidney disease is fast becoming a dangerous health threat, and one of the most costly, in the U.S. Kidney disease is a frequent complication of diabetes and hypertension that currently costs Medicare about $41 billion a year in treatment, including dialysis. That figure is giving urgency to a push for widespread routine screening. Read more of this post