Pharma

Drugs (4665)
Illicit drugs (76)
Pharmaceutical industry (436)
Pharmacology (58)
Pharmacy (647)

Synopsis: Pharma:

#Would you take smart drugs to perform better at work? Would you let your child get on a bus driven by someone on mind-altering drugs?

What about having an operation conducted by a surgeon taking stimulant pills? Unappealing at first glance; however would your opinion change

if you knew those drugs made the driver less likely to crash, and the surgeon better able to keep a steady hand?

Drugs that help people with brain and neuropsychiatric conditions improve concentration, planning and memory, or reduce impulsive

And the use of these so-called"smart drugs#is set to grow in our increasingly competitive world,

Perhaps if people had access to safe cognitive enhancing drugs, they would be at less risk of losing their attention in critical situations,

If popping pills can make completing mental challenges easier, how will that affect our sense of achievement and self worth?

Those that use smart drugs swear by them. I probably gained nine or ten per cent in my exam and essay marks due to being able to focus

A 2008 online survey carried out by the journal Nature found that one in five readers had taken the anti-hyperactivity drug Ritalin, narcolepsy treatment modafinil,

or beta blockers for non-medical reasons to stimulate focus, concentration or memory. Smart drugs have reached even primary school,

with some US doctors now prescribing Adderall#amphetamine salts used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy#to healthy children from low-income families purely to improve academic performance.

Doors of perceptionshift workers truck drivers, pilots and doctors are known also to take cognitive enhancers. Stimulant use has long been commonplace in the military,

from Incans given coca leaves before battles to Allied soldiers using amphetamines during World war Two,

including experiments into the use of beta blockers to reduce stress hormones. Some argue the development of new, more effective cognitive drugs,

as well as ageing working populations and greater competition for work all point towards their use becoming more widespread in future.

We don't really know what the long-term health implications of taking these drugs are for healthy people,

The authors said the drug likely improved working memory function by boosting levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

Psychologists have also found study participants given Piracetam performed better in verbal memory tests after two weeks of taking the drug.

In a 2010 review Claire Advokat, Professor of Psychology at Louisiana State university, found that stimulant drugs such as Ritalin might improve memory retention

and suggestions that those with two copies of a gene variant associated with higher levels of dopamine actually performed worse when given the drug.

There might be some healthy people who see improvement in some functions in response to a drug

This variability in effects can at least in part be explained by the fact that these drugs either boost or curb levels of circulating neurotransmitters, the chemicals that relay signals between nerve cells in the brain.

she and Sharon Morein-Zamir point out that increasingly sophisticated smart drugs targeted to a person's genetic make-up could have large effects in future.

Smart drugs may be character-changing, says John Harris, Professor of Bioethics, and Director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovations, University of Manchester, UK.

John, the Warwick University student, doesn't feel his use of the drugs is giving him an unfair advantage.

which coercing people to take drugs is justified to enhance safety, such as keeping long-distance drivers awake

What about indirect coercion, feeling the need to take smart drugs because competitors are doing so?

a third said they would feel pressure to give the drugs to their children if their fellow pupils were taking them."

But the legality is of little relevance as customers turn to internet pharmacies to obtain them.

Regulatory authorities such as the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency are set up to evaluate the effects of treatments on disease and disorders, not healthy people.

Neither large pharmaceutical companies nor public funding bodies are likely to put forward the necessary funds because of the stigma attached to promoting the drug use to healthy people.

and the drugs become more potent. When that time comes, says Sahakian, developing laws and policies that deal with the ethical challenges,

if we have data from larger studies into the effects of these drugs. The question is who would be willing to carry these tests out.

and his investors are onboard on that basis. Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson has hinted the company will take a nontraditional route to paying back its venture capitalists, possibly through recapitalisation and debt financing.

#Antibiotics: Light-sensitive drugs to tackle hardy bugs The voices warning of the demise of our antibiotic defences are getting louder.

With common pathogens such as E coli and the pneumonia bug K. pneumoniae developing resistance to our antibiotics of last resort, leading pharmacologists, clinicians and epidemiologists say we risk being cast back to a time

when even routine surgery put Victorians at risk of fatal infection. It's no mystery

Complacent over-prescription of antibiotics by doctors, and their reckless, profligate use in livestock rearing, has provided ample opportunity for resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria to proliferate through natural selection.

An imminent and widespread outbreak of responsible antibiotic use seems unlikely. The financial incentive that usually drives private sector drug development is weakened by the knowledge that more profitable all-purpose antibiotics become obsolete more quickly because of the likely faster emergence of resistance.

Researchers in The netherlands are exploring a novel way forward. What if antibiotics could be deactivated after use

so that they no longer accumulate in the environment where they encourage the emergence of resistant bugs?

A team at the University of Groningen has demonstrated a way to switch off antibiotic agents after just a few hours using warmth or sunlight.

The basic concept is to equip drug molecules with chemical components that change shape in response to heat or light.

Many drugs work by sticking to and deactivating particular enzyme molecules in the body, disabling their function.

Antibiotics typically work by disrupting functions that are essential to the survival of bacterial cells.

And the way a drug binds to its target usually depends on it having a shape that fits rather precisely into a"slot#on the target enzyme.

So if a drug changes shape it might no longer work. Light-switchable drugs have been explored in other fields such as cancer therapy,

but not for antibiotics. Organic chemist Ben Feringa at Groningen and his co-workers used an existing light-switchable unit called azobenzene,

which consists of two benzene molecules joined together by two nitrogen atoms linked by a double chemical bond.

Feringa and colleagues substituted the azobenzene switch for a similar chemical grouping within several variants of an antibacterial molecule called a quinolone,

which is all but useless as an antibiotic. Not only could this innovation prevent accumulation of active antibiotics in the environment,

but it might also help to reduce side effects. One of these comes from their indiscriminate nature:

Drugs equipped with activation switches could be administered orally and then turned on with light once they reach the part of the body (the throat

Switching on drugs with ultraviolet light is not ideal in practice because it can have harmful effects.

adding specialist verticals in the healthcare and financial sectors, research and development and a pharmaceutical division. In 2011, the company acquired Headstrong, an IT services firm,

and power pack in the Given Imaging camera pill is based on equipment in the nose of a military drone,

Less intellectually nourishing sci-fi food staples include the entire meal in a pill (or dollop or slab of gunk

which Leeloo puts chicken pills into a microwave and a second later pulls out a full roast with all the trimmings.

The idea of all-in-one food pills goes back to the 19th century and has been the subject of much serious research.

How to make a microchip that breathes Drug testing is a costly business. Before any candidate can be tested in humans it has to be tested on animals to see

There are efforts to reduce the number of animals used in drug testing, but an accurate and reliable alternative would be far more desirable.

many gangs fund themselves through drug dealing, which tends to happen through the formation of orner crews small groups that congregate on a particular street corner to sell drugs.

Having some knowledge of the links and affiliations between different gangs can highlight dangers that call for more focused policing.

for example, to broker deals that allow one gang to conduct drug sales on the territory of another.

Medications do not help the depression. When I was diagnosed with what some call"leaky gut,

Also, would this suggest that perhaps taking an anti inflammatory medicine can alleviate depression???I'm a counselor in training

and to discover medications that can restore balance to this part of the circuit h

#Medical device Industry Mergers and Acquisitions Hit All-time High in 2014 says Globaldata Analyst The medical device industry witnessed an all-time record high in terms of deal valuations in 2014,

#Moffitt researchers discover mechanism leading to drug resistance metastasis in melanoma Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have discovered a mechanism that leads to resistance to targeted therapy in melanoma patients

when compared to the adverse effects of standard chemotherapeutic drugs. However, patients often develop resistance to these targeted therapies,

Drugs that target B-Raf or another protein in the same network called MEK have proved effective in clinical trials.

Moffitt researchers found that patients who are on B-Raf inhibitor drugs develop more new metastases than patients who are on standard chemotherapy.

or MEK inhibitor drugs reversed the cells'aggressive behavior.""This suggests that alternate dose scheduling where B-Raf

This suggests that drugs that target Epha2 may prevent the development of new disease in patients who receive B-Raf and B-Raf/MEK inhibitor therapy y

#Chemists show proof of concept for new method of accelerating drug discovery research Source: Emory Health Sciences Chemists have made a significant advancement to directly functionalize C-H bonds in natural products by selectively installing new carbon-carbon bonds into highly complex alkaloids

and nitrogen-containing drug molecules. C-H functionalization is a much more streamlined process than traditional organic chemistry,

holding the potential to greatly reduce the time and number of steps needed to create derivatives of natural products.

Nature Communications published the findings, emerging from a collaboration with Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and Emory University.

"Co-authors are Novartis chemists Rohan Beckwith, Jing He and Lawrence Hamann. The CCHF is at the forefront of a major paradigm shift in organic chemistry.

"Novartis wanted to explore whether this chemistry was robust enough to be carried out on really complex compounds like alkaloids."

"Alkaloids are a family of natural products produced by plants that have biological properties important to medicine.

Morphine, codeine and opioids are examples of alkaloids. A key part of the drug development process is creating libraries of derivatives from such natural products:

Groups of chemical compounds with small molecular differences.""These small differences could determine whether a compound is toxic

or carries other liabilities, or has the right mix of properties to become a safe and effective therapeutic agent,

The results outlined in the paper demonstrate the efficiency of rhodium catalysts to selectively install a new carbon-carbon bond into complex alkaloids in a highly controlled manner.

"Novartis sees great potential in C-H functionalization, "Davies says.""It has been an early and enthusiastic supporter of the CCFH through collaborative research of scientists at Novartis and in CCHF academic labs

#Enzymes believed to promote cancer actually suppress tumors Upending decades-old dogma, a team of scientists at the University of California,

tumor suppressors and that current clinical efforts to develop inhibitor-based drugs should instead focus on restoring the enzymes'activities.

or halt tumor development,"said Alexandra Newton, Phd, professor of pharmacology and the study's principal investigator,

Published in the February 2015 edition of the Journal of Affective disorders, the findings could provide a biological basis for diagnosing

Antidepressants called SSRIS, or selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, which were designed to treat depression, target serotonin.

and identify new drug therapies for prevention and treatment.""Still, Goenjian cautioned, PTSD is caused likely by multiple genes

such as gene therapy or new drugs that regulate the chemicals associated with PTSD symptoms

#Tracking subtle brain mutations systematically DNA sequences were thought once to be identical from cell to cell,

and response to drug or behavioral treatments. The technology may offer opportunities to personalize educational and clinical practices.

including infants'later performance in reading, students'later performance in math, criminals'likelihood of becoming repeat offenders, adolescents'future drug and alcohol use,

HIV antiviral therapy prevents active HIV cells from replicating and doesn't affect the quiet viruses in sleeping T-cells.

Now we can affect this region with rational drug design, for example by creating compounds that would change its electrostatic profile.

#Promising drug candidate protects against radiation exposure from nuclear fallout The 2011 Fukushima disaster was a stark reminder of the continuing dangers posed by nuclear fallout,

highlighting the need for an approved drug that can be taken after radiation exposure to protect against organ injury and death.

& Biology identifies a drug candidate called DBIBB that increases the survival of mice suffering from radiation syndrome,

The findings suggest that DBIBB shows promise for becoming the first drug capable of treating acute radiation syndrome caused by the high levels of radiation released by nuclear explosions."

no approved drug is taken effective when after radiation exposure. In previous studies, Tigyi and his collaborators found that a molecule called lysophosphatidic acid (LPA),

or possess the desired drug-like potency required for clinical use. To overcome this hurdle,

compared with only 20%of mice that were treated not with the drug candidate. This promising compound will soon join the regulatory pipeline of a biotech company called Rxbio Inc,

making it a well-known but elusive target of drug developers. In a new study in the journal Cell, the scientists report that

Finding the right target for a drug in one of Myc's key metabolic or immune system pathways may

any drug that can target Myc directly is likely to find many applications beyond cancer r

Antibiotics do not consistently clear infection and without correct treatment the anaemia can be fatal.

a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, used a device he invented to capture circulating tumor cells from blood samples.

founding director of Columbia University Institute for Genomic Medicine. his collaboration marries the exceptional drug development expertise of Biogen with cutting-edge genomics expertise at Columbia University Medical center.

It will not only focus on target identification and validation at the early stages of drug development,

cloud solutions are updated typically on a frequent basis. As report formats change or new requirements are added,

"We have enough confidence in this product to go live on a day-to-day basis, she says. Similar to the Workday system, Box legal team had to train the DLOOP software to improve the recommendations.

Those who do attend university favor professions such as medicine, pharmacy, nursing and teaching, and they have been less present in business schools.

According to the U s. Census bureau, the population here in D c. grows from 584,400 to over 1 million people on a daily basis

on a competitive basis. FTA officials said its Low or No Emission Vehicle Deployment Program (Lono), established under the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act,

could be the basis for a single climate information service for the whole of Europe and for training new experts in communicating climate knowledge.

and monitor these systems on an ongoing basis."The airport operator programmes the system to make connections between data sources and highlight potential threats in real time.

monitoring and measuring on a daily basis enables preparation, prevention and understanding. I think, with this project,

Finding the best combination of drugs for individual patients is another key challenge in the treatment of this disorder.

it can take many months to find a suitable drug regime. In the interval, lives and livelihoods may be destroyed.

so as to generate leads for the development of new drugs, and they also wanted to develop innovative diagnostic tools.

or a test that would help to pinpoint the most promising combinations of drugs for individual patients.

often require people to take pain medication. Up until recently, artificial hands provided only limited benefits.

For some 35 years, cisplatin and other platinum-based drugs have proved their ability to bind to DNA strands

in particular with platinum-based drugs, are a major drawback for patients, says Professor Fregona. nterestingly, our compounds show different action mechanisms.

What kind of drugs have been used for treatments? Also what does the medical imaging tell us or what does the blood biomarkers (blood samples) tell us The database allows neurologists to compare their patientscases with similar ones.

but also other, larger businesses seeking more sustainable wrapping methods, including pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies i

These partners can also consult the EFAS Flood Portal on a daily basis. The portal issues maps of Europe where danger zones are indicated by"hot spots".

how they colonise other organs and how they may respond to either existing or future drugs.

#Sweetening the bitter pill of cancer treatment Despite a massive research effort, cancer is still a major killer in Europe.

European researchers are working on a sugar-based drug-delivery system which they believe will boost the potency of anticancer drugs,

helping them reach and destroy cancerous cells more effectively. The project team has developed particles tiny enough to invade cancer cells

Potent anticancer drugs exist, but they struggle to distinguish between normal, healthy cells and the dangerous tumour cells.

New targeted drug-delivery strategies are needed. With the help of EU funding the Cyclon project is developing biocompatible sugar-based drug-delivery systems that could lead to a breakthrough in the fight against various cancers.

The research teams are working on anticancer drug-delivery systems based on yclodextrinsa type of sugar that can be produced from potatoes, wheat,

corn or rice by using'enzymes'(molecules responsible for chemical conversions). Hydrophobic (water-repellent) molecules encapsulated in cyclodextrins are able to penetrate body tissues.

This helps the drug hone in on tumour sites, control the release of therapeutic compounds and enhance the efficiency of the treatment. he decorating of nanoparticles very tiny particles with cyclodextrins allows us to play with the functionality,

says project coordinator Dr Konstantina Yannakopoulou. e can use the cyclodextrins to mask the drug-carrying particles

and bear a high drug payload, she explains. hey can even incorporate molecules with a capability for photo-stimulated killing for combined chemo-and photo-therapy as well as imaging.

Dr Yannakopoulou adds that exploration into the ability of specific cyclodextrins to deliver anticancer drugs

and are gaining valuable knowledge in many aspects of drug delivery for cancer treatment development,

These infectious diseases have developed antibiotic resistance and spread despite the best efforts of staff, mainly through textiles like bed linen.

It developed durable antimicrobial textiles with a polymeric coating in the nano range thickness in other words

these antimicrobial textiles will resist, and not spread the infections, says Nanobond project coordinator Patrice Vandendaele, from Belgium-based Devan Chemicals,

when the consortium discovered a molecule that sticks to other molecules. his molecule was helping organise the antimicrobial molecules,

The antimicrobial surface effectively acts physically rather than chemically. It has two distinct parts: a glue system to attach to the textiles,

and an antimicrobial part to pierce the membrane of any bacteria cell that it touches. t works like a spike bursting a balloon,

says Vandendaele. hile other antimicrobials give bacteria time to adapt, this kills it immediately. Both natural and artificial fibres can be treated.

both to acquire our system on a licence basis and to form partnerships to deliver water,

After supporting the development of informatics at Avantium he moved to Novartis in Switzerland to expand the company's expertise and now works with the Institute of Cancer Research in London.

Plants have been used to produce pharmaceuticals in the past, but the crucial element at the heart of the three-year PLAPROVA project was a technique for doing this much more quickly than previously possible an advance

This triggers the production of proteins which are of potential pharmaceutical interest as the basis for new vaccines.

and the health and pharmaceuticals sectors. Back to that ketchup and blood comparison: one type of polysaccharide is used to achieve the correct viscosity in ketchup,

Bringing together biologists, chemists, microbiologists, biochemists, molecular geneticists and biotechnologists from universities, biotech firms and food and pharmaceutical multinationals from around Europe, Polymode has identified now its first eadingand ritingenzymes.

and stop epileptic attacks without drugs and without major brain surgery. To the 50 million people worldwide who suffer from epileptic seizures a chronic neurobiological disorder this simple plan could transform their lives.

especially for the 30%of epileptics who cannot be treated with drugs. The fact that the device can be implanted in a minimally invasive way is"crucial"

Every medical intervention is judged on a cost-benefit basis . Since this device is implanted on the outer surface of the skull,

there has never been need a greater for quick and accurate ways to detect explosives, toxic chemicals, illegal drugs and other potential hazards to public safety and health.

which can find traces of explosives, chemical weapons and illicit drugs. Among the project's breakthroughs, the X-ray backscatter equipment produces high-intensity beams

Combined with a high-speed reader the newtechnology has already been recognisedwithin the industry as the perfect answer tothe scourge of pharmaceutical counterfeiting.

Back with the pharmaceuticals industry thenew system guards against another majorrisk: the danger of bottles getting mixed upduring production.

#ACTINOGEN#Uncovering a hidden source of new antibiotics In recent years, the emergence of multiple-drug-resistant bacteria has created a major health threat, for example through hospital-acquired infections from drug

-resistant'superbugs'such as MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and the rapidly emerging multi-drug resistant Gram negative hospital infections.

such as new strains of tuberculosis against which existing drugs are powerless. It was to meet the unaddressed need for new antibiotics that the ACTINOGEN research project began in 2005

supported by funding provided under the European union's 6th Research Framework Programme (FP6. The aim was to discover

whether genetic techniques could be used to create new antibiotics from bacteria commonly found in garden soil.

Known as streptomycetes, these bacteria were recognised already as a source of antibiotics. But a turning point came in 2002,

It was known that the bacterium produced four different antibiotics but the genome sequence revealed the potential for around 20.

The known antibiotics represented only 20%of the possible total. The genetic coding for production of the other 80%lay in'cryptic pathways,

or whether it could be used to trigger the production of new antibiotic compounds.''Meanwhile, the genomes of other streptomycete species had been sequenced

''If you wanted to discover new antibiotics, this had enormous implications, 'says Professor Dyson. During the project, ACTINOGEN scientists successfully triggered the creation of new antibiotics using the cryptic pathways of a number of streptomycete species,

thus confirming that here indeed was a rich seam of potential new drug discovery. With thousands of streptomycete species already known to science,

and many more still undiscovered in nature, the potential to generate huge numbers of new antibiotics was clear.

An equally important part of the project concerned the genetic engineering of a species of streptomycete which could be used as a kind of'all-purpose'production facility,

able to synthesise the new antibiotics in sufficient quantity. Known as a'generic Superhost',it allows the genetic coding for any desired antibiotic to be taken from its original bacterial host,

where the production process may be difficult and slow, and implanted in the Superhost, which then produces the antibiotic in much greater quantity than is otherwise possible.

In the past, says Professor Dyson, achieving the necessary level of production took around 10 years. The ACTINOGEN Superhost allows the same result to be achieved within six months to one year.

clearly offer the prospect of a revolution in antibiotic production opening up the possibility of a range of potential new drugs, with important benefits not only for human health,

which will domuch to help provide a viable basis for thebio-economy as a whole. It will also put Europe at the forefront of whatis sure to be one of the most dynamic andimportant areas of economic and scientificactivity of the future u

#PHARMA-PLANTA#Harnessing plant biotechnology to revolutionise pharmaceutical production The hope is that the drug will prove effective in preventing HIV infection.

It confirmed, for the first time, that molecules known as monoclonal antibodies the key component of the drug, and of many other highly effective modern pharmaceuticals-could be produced from plants in a form that met the extremely stringent standards required for use in the treatment of humans.

As well as bringing hope to the fight against HIV/AIDS the decision opened the way for trials of other plant-derived medicines to treat a range of diseases.

It was, potentially, an important step towards the transformation of modern drug manufacturing, offering the developing world access to key drugs

which have previously been prohibitively costly. The move to Phase 1 clinical trials was the crowning achievement of PHARMA-PLANTA,

to develop a manufacturing process for recombinant protein drug products derived from GM plants and to take one such product through all the development stages,

allowing production of drugs"in the region, for the region.""Discovered by one of the four private commercial partners in the project, Austrian biotech company Polymun,

Meanwhile, other diseases for which it is envisaged that GM plants could provide new drugs include cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and others which,

< Back - Next >

Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011