Soil bacteria could yield drug to treat roundworm: Nature Newsa bacterial protein used in a common pesticide kills intestinal parasitic roundworms in mice
Compared to the best drugs people have developed to treat human parasitic worms this natural protein is at least three times better,
Nearly all of the current drugs to treat nematode diseases were invented for veterinary purposes, he says,
give me the best vet drug you have for treating my condition? he says. This is the only disease
biochemistry and pharmacology. go. nature. com/Errfze 27-29 april The Cambridge Healthtech Institute's Drug Discovery Chemistry conference is held in San diego, California,
with programmes on antibacterial drug development and protein-protein interactions as drug targets. www. drugdiscoverychemistry. com 28-29 april A symposium hosted by the Zoological Society of London examines the link between the conservation of biodiversity
and for conducting clinical trials of its drugs. Pfizer said it paid out US$35 million in the last six months of 2009.
It was required to post much of the data by an agreement settling a US government investigation into the company's promotion of its drugs for off-label use.
The US pharmacy chain Walgreens postponed plans to start selling a personal genome-testing kit in thousands of its shops last week,
after the Food and Drug Administration began an investigation into whether the kits require regulatory approval.
Astellas Pharma, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, said on 16 may that it had agreed to pay US$4 billion to purchase OSI Pharmaceuticals,
based in New york. The US firm is known best for its anticancer drug erlotinib (Tarceva). Business watch Investors are losing confidence in Monsanto,
the agricultural biotech giant based in St louis, Missouri (see chart). Some farmers aren't seeing big yield increases with the company's new herbicide-tolerant soya bean line, Roundup Ready 2 Yield.
But Robert Bergman, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, who cosigned a 2007 letter of protest against the use of the fumigant,
The DPR commissioned an independent review, led by chemist John Froines, to settle the debate (see'Strawberry pesticide leaves sour taste').
says Roald Hoffmann, a Nobel-prize-winning chemist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New york, who cosigned the 2007 protest letter with Bergman.
On 24 may, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fined Genzyme US$175 million for poor oversight at one of its manufacturing plants.
to clean the plant will cause shortages of three drugs, including one used to treat thyroid cancer.
Last year, a US Food and Drug Administration committee recommended that the drug be approved for certain patients,
Analysts predict multibillion-dollar annual sales for the drug. Pharma R&d shuffle: Astrazeneca has hired Pfizer's research and development (R&d) chief, Martin Mackay,
to take the helm of its own R&d programme. Pfizer and Astrazeneca are both restructuring their R&d programmes to replenish pipelines and cut costs.
Mackay became head of R&d at Pfizer, the world's biggest drug maker, in 2007,
Business watch A growing need to cut pharmaceutical and biotechnology research costs is fuelling a boom in the contract research organization (CRO) industry.
According to an August 2009 report by London-based market analysts Business Insights, CROS accounted for 20%of the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology research and development budget in 2008.
and drug resistance hadn't developed. We have been aided by pure good luck she said. Research Student gene-testing dropped:
The chief executive of India's biggest drug maker, Ranbaxy, resigned unexpectedly last week, citing differences of opinion with parent company Daiichi Sankyo,
a major player in the generic drugs market and headquartered in Gurgaon, for little more than a year.
and Drug Administration accused the company of falsifying safety data. Ranbaxy announced net profits of 3. 3 billion rupees (US$71 million) for the year's second quarter, down 50%on the previous year but above analysts'expectations.
Pharma deal: Generic drugs maker Aspen Pharmacare, based in Durban, South africa, will buy the drugs manufacturing unit of Australian company Sigma Pharmaceuticals for Aus$900 million (US$806 million).
Aspen, which is owned 19 by pharmaceutical giant Glaxosmithkline, headquartered in London, and is Africa's largest drugs manufacturer,
wanted to expand its position in the Australian generics market. It announced the deal on 16 august.
Gene-sequencing IPO: Pacific Biosciences, a gene-sequencing technology company in Menlo Park, California, aims to raise US$200 million in an initial public offering.
In a US Securities and exchange commission filing dated 16 august, the company says that it would use the proceeds for further research and development relating to its sequencing technology,
Business watch A generation of drugs with the potential to cure hepatitis C is set to flood the market.
This month, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and drug behemoth Merck, headquartered in Whitehouse Station, New jersey, both released promising results from late-stage clinical trials of their leading drugs against the hepatitis C virus (HCV).
The virus, which infects liver cells and can cause cirrhosis and liver cancer, affects about 3%of the world's population.
Currently, half of the patients with HCV are cured by a course of an immune-boosting protein and a general antiviral,
Merck's drug boceprevir and Vertex's telaprevir both block HCV's protease enzyme and 墉 combined with the standard treatment 墉 cured 66%and 72%of patients respectively in phase
If the drugs are approved by mid-2011, as their manufacturers hope, they will take the early lead in an HCV-drug field that could grow to be worth US$15 billion by 2017, according to Irena Melnikova, a life-sciences analyst at TVM Capital in Boston, Massachusetts.
whether a drug is likely to work or not, the hospital tests patients for some 150 mutations in more than a dozen cancer-causing genes,
which includes the pharmaceutical multinationals Pfizer and Astrazeneca, will also design software to make the results useful to researchers and clinicians.
These data could reveal how drugs targeting one molecular pathway are affected by mutations in another gene
Chemists help archaeologists to probe biblical history: Nature News TEL MEGIDDO Fabled as a site of biblical battles and spectacular palaces,
Chemists make up half of the two dozen excavators on the team, which is being led by Finkelstein and Steve Weiner,
Hungarian emergency agencies, assisted by environmental chemists from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, are confident that there will be no lasting damage to human health
African innovation Africa is struggling to turn local discoveries into drugs and other health-care inventions
including several drug candidates and a dipstick test for schistosomiasis. Scientists have no incentive to commercialize results,
Nobel chemist dies John Fenn (pictured who shared the 2002 Nobel prize in Chemistry, died on 10 december aged 93.
US pharmaceutical giant Johnson & johnson issued a long-awaited public offer to buy Crucell, a biotechnology firm headquartered in Leiden, The netherlands.
a drug-development programme of up to US$500 million authorized in this year's health-care reform law.
and Drug Administration broad new food-policing powers. The agency would also have to identify the most significant contaminants
Business Pharma chiefs After four years as chief executive of New york-based drug company Pfizer, Jeffrey Kindler announced his retirement on 6 december.
He is to be replaced by Ian Read, the firm's global head of pharmaceuticals. The move was a surprise.
Red wine drug Drug company Glaxosmithkline (GSK) has halted all development of a proprietary formulation of resveratrol a chemical found in red wine
Business Orphan drugs European spending on research and development (R&d) of'orphan'drugs for rare diseases jumped from ¢ 158 million (US$207 million) in 2000 to nearly ¢Â
500 million in 2008 墉 doubling from 1%to 2. 2%of total European pharmaceutical R&d spending,
In that same period, global R&d spending on orphan drugs grew from ¢ 305 million to ¢ 1. 9 billion
French drug reform France's health minister Xavier Bertrand last week pledged to reform the country's drug-regulation system in the wake of a damning official report into why the weight-loss drug Mediator
The french state body that approves drugs for marketing, banned the drug only in 2009, even though questions were raised about its impact on heart disease more than a decade ago,
a delay that the report says may have contributed to some 500 premature deaths. The AFSSAPS will now investigate 76 other products,
Of this, some $60 million should be used to boost research activities including developing classes of antimalarials to replace the artemisinins, currently the most potent antimalaria drugs.
Published last week, THE WHO's plan for containing resistance to the drugs also calls for increased monitoring,
as only 31 of the 75 countries that should be routinely testing the drugs'efficacy did so in 2010.
People King Faisal prize Chemists George Whitesides, of Harvard university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Richard Zare, of Stanford university in California, have been announced as winners of this year's King Faisal International Prize for Science.
Business watch In 2011 and 2012, the drug industry will face the worst effects of its'patent cliff'
as several major drugs face competition from generics. The world's best-selling drug 墉 Pfizer's cholesterol-lowering medication Lipitor (atorvastatin) 墉 may face competition from generics maker Ranbaxy of Gurgaon, India.
Other blockbusters due to come off patent include Sanofi-aventis's anti-clotting drug Plavix (clopidogrel) and Eli lilly's schizophrenia drug Zyprexa (olanzapine.
Research Plant catalogue A working list of known land plant species 墉 a key tool for conservation efforts 墉 was released at the end of 2010 (see www. theplantlist. org.
People Stolen secrets A former research chemist at the chemical giant Dow was last week found guilty of stealing trade secrets,
%.And funding for organizations that manage private public partnerships to develop drugs dropped by 8. 6,
Business Obesity drug upset US regulators have rejected another obesity drug, despite an earlier recommendation from advisers to conditionally approve it.
On 1 february, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told Orexigen Therapeutics of La jolla, California, that concerns about the possible cardiovascular risks of the drug Contrave (naltrexone/bupropion) outweighed its weight-loss benefit.
It asked for further clinical trials. Orexigen's share price fell by 72%following the news. Last year,
and asked for a third to be pulled off the Market research cutback Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on 1 february announced cuts to its research budget
Keith Goulding, a soil chemist at the agricultural research centre Rothamsted Research, in Harpenden, UK,
member states of the World health organization (WHO) will send samples of flu virus to laboratories and drug makers around the world,
Nobel chemist dies William Lipscomb, who won the 1976 Nobel prize in Chemistry for his work on chemical bonding,
And animal feed in China is loaded with additives such as antibiotics and heavy metals, making many farmers reluctant to use manure as a replacement for chemical fertilizers.
Business Hepatitis approvals As expected, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved what is only the second drug to directly target the hepatitis C virus. Telaprevir (Incivek),
marketed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was given the green light on 23 may 墉 10 days after the agency approved boceprevir (Victrelis) made by Merck of Whitehouse Station, New jersey.
Takeda drug deal Japanese drug giant Takeda will buy Swiss drug maker Nycomed for ¢ 9. 6 billion (US$13. 6 billion),
Its last major deal was an $8. 8-billion acquisition of biotech firm Millennium Pharmaceuticals,
In some insects, double stranded-rna RNA, a hallmark of viral infection, can provoke a specific antiviral immune response.
Trend watch A pivotal paper by chemist John Fenn saw huge numbers of citations almost immediately after its 1989 publication,
Global drug safety Pronouncing itself at the centre of a global bazaar, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced its intention to assemble an international coalition of regulatory agencies to strengthen product safety worldwide.
In a report released on 20 june, the FDA says that it will build a global data network that will allow regulators to proactively share real-time information.
the report notes, for example, that 80%of the active ingredients in medications sold in the United states come from elsewhere.
Drug-approval race Since 2003 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved more cancer drugs than the European Medicines Agency (EMA),
and approved those drugs more quickly, according to a report in Health Affairs on 16 june. Up to the end of March 2010, the US agency had approved 32 new anticancer drugs,
whereas the EMA had approved 26. The median time from submission to approval was 182 days in the United states and 350 days in Europe.
Janet Woodcock, the FDA's top drug-approval official, says that the difference extends to all categories of drug.
See go. nature. com/ouxsup for more. UK health research The UK government has promised that medical research will receive greater attention in its revised proposals for reforming the country's public health service,
Our use of antibiotics may be helping those viral genes to spread. If bacteria are exposed to some types of antibiotics they undergo what is called the SOS response,
which induces the phage to start replicating. Active replication of the phage causes the bacterial cells to burst open,
which is why antibiotics are used not usually to treat E coli infections (see'Europe's E coli outbreak:
time for the antibiotics?'.'One of the many unusual characteristics of strain O104: H4 is that it has resistance genes to multiple classes of antibiotics.
This suggests that wherever the bacteria have come from there has been selective pressure to resist antibiotics.
Heather Allison, a microbiologist at the University of Liverpool, UK, and David Acheson, a managing director for food safety at consulting firm Leavitt Partners in WASHINGTON DC, agree it is plausible that exposure to antibiotics in agricultural use
or in the environment might be enhancing the spread of Shiga-toxin-producing phage. Acheson worked on this question
He says they saw Shiga-toxin-producing phage transfer between E coli in response to sub-therapeutic levels of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin in vitro and in the intestines of mice.
The potential for the creation of new pathogens via phage release is absolutely a factor in the broader environmental danger of overuse of antibiotics.
Agricultural use of antibiotics is a possible suspect. Phage are particularly abundant in the guts of ruminants
The bacteria are relatively unusual in that they produce extended-spectrum à Â-lactamases enzymes that render the bacteria resistant to many different antibiotics.
Patients with E coli infections are treated not typically with antibiotics anyway, because the bacteria are thought to respond to the medication by increasing production of the Shiga toxin,
which can lead to the life-threatening complication haemolytic-uremic syndrome. But antibiotic resistance might have helped the bacteria to survive
and persist in the environment. EHEC outbreaks usually only last around two weeks, but this outbreak has been going on
In addition to the antibiotic-resistance genes, the bacteria contain a gene for resistance to the mineral tellurite (tellurium dioxide.
Tellurium oxides were used as antimicrobial agents against diseases such as leprosy and tuberculosis before the development of antibiotics.
Research targeting mosquito control is compared grossly underfunded with that on malaria drugs and vaccines she adds,
Nature Newsthe first drug to show signs of not just halting multiple sclerosis (MS), but actually reversing the nerve damage caused by the condition,
Ludwig Kappos, chair of neurology at the University Hospital of Basel in Switzerland, who has been involved in several MS drug trials,
the drug tackles the mechanisms that cause damage to cells by effectively resetting the immune system.
The drug brings an increased risk of autoimmune diseases. In the trial, 18.1%of people taking alemtuzumab experienced thyroid-related autoimmune responses,
The drug is approved already in many countries as a treatment for some forms of leukaemia and lymphoma, under the name Campath.
it is legal to prescribe any drug for off-label use, and so patients have started already using it to treat MS,
But it is not just MS patients who have been holding their breath over this drug,
and a range of other therapies, was acquired by Paris-based drug-maker Sanofi. The value of the deal for Genzyme's shareholders is contingent on the success of alemtuzumab in treating MS;
the first milestone is for the drug to gain approval from the US Food and Drug Administration before the end of March 2014.
BUSINESSVIOXX fines Drug-maker Merck will pay US$950 million to settle investigations into how it marketed the painkiller Vioxx,
had to pull the blockbuster arthritis drug from the market in 2004, after five years of sales.
Lipitor patent ends The world's best-selling drug, Pfizer's cholesterol-lowering medication Lipitor (atorvastatin) now faces competition from generics,
The drug has brought in more than US$100 billion in sales for the pharma company, based in New york,
Zimbabwe and Uganda after a routine data review found that it was no better than placebo at preventing HIV.
The US Food and Drug Administration had planned to mandate graphic health warnings on packets from September 2012,
Business Avandia fine Drug giant Glaxosmithkline (GSK) announced on 3 november that it has agreed to pay US$3 billion to settle a bevy of US federal investigations into the way it has developed
and marketed some of its biggest-selling drugs. Foremost among these is Avandia (rosiglitazone), a once-dominant diabetes drug, sales
of which were banned in Europe and restricted in the United states last year after concerns that it increased risks of heart attack and stroke.
when a US Senate committee concluded that GSK had known about the drug's heart risks for more than a decade without reporting them to regulators.
and Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. Policy Drug approvals rise The US Food and Drug Administration approved more innovative drugs this year than in any year of the past decade,
except for 2009, the agency said last week. In the US government's fiscal year 2011,
¢â presents recommendations for avoiding future food crises. ccafs. cgiar. org/commission Number crunch $131 bn Lifetime sales of Pfizer's cholesterol-lowering drug
Preventing HIV Pharmaceutical firm Gilead Sciences wants to sell anti-HIV drugs to healthy people,
and Drug Administration to sell its two-in-one antiretroviral medication Truvada (emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) to people not infected with HIV.
its products include biological drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and anaemia. SOURCE: GTM RES.//SEIAUS solar-energy installations spiked during the third quarter of 2011,
Those given the experimental monoclonal antibody pertuzumab and the widely used drug trastuzumab (Herceptin), together with chemotherapy, gained an extra 6-month lull in disease progression compared with women receiving only chemotherapy and trastuzumab.
Pill politics In a surprise move, the US Secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, has overruled the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and denied girls under 17 access to the emergency contraceptive levonorgestrel known as the morning-after pill,
or Plan B unless it is prescribed by a physician. Drug-makers Teva had asked that the pill be made available over the counter to girls,
and FDA research had found it to be safe and effective. But Sebelius said on 7 december that she did not believe the pill could be used safely by the youngest girls of reproductive age.
See go. nature. com/w3343o for more. Fisheries push The United nations has stepped up a push to encourage sustainable fisheries.
Scientists contacted By nature say that basic research on such mutated strains may eventually yield insight relevant to developing pandemic countermeasures such as drugs and vaccines.
Antibiotic ban The US Food and Drug Administration is restricting some uses of a major class of antibiotic in farm animals,
which microbes acquire resistance to the drugs. On 4 january, the agency banned unapproved uses of cephalosporins in cattle, pigs,
chickens and turkeys a ban that it had ordered already in 2008, but revoked after protests from farmers,
Hepatitis C hopefuls Pharmaceutical giant Bristol-myers squibb of New york city has become the latest company to spend billions on the promise of hepatitis C treatments.
See go. nature. com/qjoqfn for more on hepatitis C drugs. Teva rethink Israeli pharmaceutical firm Teva, the world's largest maker of generic drugs, may shift its focus towards branded medicines after it announced a new chief executive.
Jeremy Levin, former head of strategy and alliances at Bristol-myers squibb in New york city, has a reputation for making external partnerships
Rules tighten on use of antibiotics on farmsthe US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now moving to protect key antibiotics known as cephalosporins,
which are used in humans to treat a range of infections, including pneumonia. On 4 Â January, the agency said that it would prohibit certain uses of cephalosporins in farm animals including cattle, pigs, chickens and turkeys,
because overuse of the drugs is"likely to contribute to cephalosporin-resistant strains of certain bacterial pathogens.
If cephalosporins become ineffective in treating human diseases, the FDA said, "doctors may have to use drugs that are not as effective,
or that have greater side effects. Source: National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System/FDATHE new rules, to come into effect on 5 Â April,
restrict veterinary surgeons to using the two cephalosporin drugs specifically approved for food-producing animals ceftiofur and cephapirin and ban prophylactic use.
In animals not listed in the FDA order, such as ducks or rabbits, vets will have more discretion to use the drugs.
Most antibiotic classes are used both in animals and in humans, so the FDA is also considering tightening controls on all classes of antimicrobials used on farms.
It is reviewing comments on rules that would prohibit the use of any antimicrobial drug to promote animal growth
a move that would be welcomed by many vets.""We would support greater veterinary oversight of antimicrobial drugs,
says Christine Hoang, assistant director of scientific activities at the American Veterinary Medical Association in Schaumburg, Illinois. The European union (EU),
which already forbids the use of antimicrobials to promote growth, plans to strengthen its own rules.
Its new antibiotic-resistance strategy, published in November  2011, calls on EU countries to ensure that antibiotics are only available on prescription,
and to strengthen surveillance systems to track and report cases of resistance (see Nature http://doi. org/cshmhv;
2011). ) Although it is accepted widely that overusing antibiotics can be a major driver of resistance in microbes,
the evidence linking antibiotic use in farm animals with resistance in humans is still controversial (A e. Mather et al.
Proc. R. Soc. B http://doi. org/hj8; 2011). ) A research programme coordinated by Europe s Innovative Medicines Initiative could provide some answers:
in the next few months it will call for proposals for  350 million (US$445 million) in grants to understand how resistance arises,
and to develop new antimicrobial drugs. Antimicrobial resistance is also this year s top priority for the intergovernmental World organisation for Animal health (OIE),
based in Paris. Bernard Vallat, director-general of the OIE, says that it is working with the FDA
and the World health organization to help developing countries to improve their legislation covering the control, distribution and use of veterinary antimicrobials.
The three organizations plan to urge governments to put vets in charge of allocating the drugs
Antibiotics are sold like sweets, Vallat told Nature.""There is no control and this is a major risk to animal and human health
BUSINESS Biosimilars rules Drug-makers keen to sell generic forms of branded biological drugs such as enzymes and antibodies were excited to finally see draft guidance on the matter emerge from the US Food and Drug
so it is much harder to copy drugs based on them than small-molecule drugs (see Nature 449,274-276;
has rejected, as expected a US$5. 7-billion takeover bid by drug giant Roche, based in Basel, Switzerland.
and drug regulatory agencies should consider adopting deep-sequencing techniques to screen herbal medicines; his team has applied for a grant to test its methods on supplements that are on the market in Australia.
In 2010 the European union (EU) banned most flukocide drugs because they leave toxic residues in milk.
The milk from cows that receive the remaining two allowed drugs is undrinkable for three days after treatment.
"Weed resistance is a game changer for agriculture in the same way that drug resistance has been a game changer for the health-care industry,
while the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) works out how to regulate them. Exemplar Genetics
they are desirable models for drug testing and for studying the disease process. However, as the first company to seek approval for a disease model in a GE animal that could, in theory,
As early as 1999, the FDA spoke about the promise of GE animals for both food and pharmaceutical purposes.
Nonetheless, Swart is worried about the regulatory process for new animal drugs (NAD), which applies to all GE animals,
whether they re bred to produce food, drugs or, in Swart s case, disease.""The NAD process doesn t fit us real well,
Moreover, without approval, Exemplar cannot promote the pig models for drug testing based on what the researchers find.
whether a drug will work.""It s critical to figure out how to do this right with the FDA,
W. Greenblatt/Sygma/Corbisnobel chemist dies Organic chemist William Knowles (pictured), who shared the 2001 Nobel prize in Chemistry,
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