Pharma News

Pfizer Inc and GlaxoSmithKline plc announced they have entered into an agreement to create a premier global consumer healthcare company with robust iconic brands. The Boards of Directors of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction under which Pfizer will contribute its consumer healthcare business to GlaxoSmithKline’s existing consumer healthcare business. The 2017 global sales for the combined business were approximately $12.7 billion.

It’s one thing to detect sites in the genome associated with mental disorders; it’s quite another to discover the biological mechanisms by which these changes in DNA work in the human brain to boost risk. In their first concerted effort to tackle the latter, 15 collaborating research teams of the National Institutes of Health-funded PsychENCODE Consortium(link is external) leveraged statistical power gained from a large sample of about 2000 postmortem human brains.

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Spurring innovation of medical products so that patients can have access to safe, effective treatments that improve or save lives is a fundamental part of our mission. FDA is taking steps on two additional device programs: finalizing guidance on our existing Breakthrough Device Program and announcing plans for a new Safer Technologies Program (STeP).

WHO is marking International Migrants Day on 18 December 2018 with the launch of a technical guidance series on the health of refugees and migrants. Produced in collaboration with the European Commission, each publication addresses a specific aspect of the health of refugees and migrants by providing tools, case studies and evidence to inform practices and policies to improve their health.

EMA has published a plan outlining how it would respond to an emerging cross-border threat to health, such as an influenza pandemic.

The health threats plan is based on the Agency’s pandemic influenza plan published in 2006 and reflects experience gained during the 2009 (H1N1) influenza pandemic as well as the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa in 2014-2016. The plan would also be triggered in the event of acute hazards including threats of chemical, environmental and unknown origin.

World Health Organization Commended stronger tobacco control measures being adopted by Thailand which has become the first in Asia and the first low and middle-income country to adopt plain packaging for tobacco products.

Protecting patient safety is at the core of the FDA’s mission. All FDA-approved drugs have benefits and risks which must be weighed and balanced by health care providers and patients when making decisions about medical therapy. Our goal is to ensure that the benefits and risks are clearly articulated in drug labeling. That patients and providers have accurate information. And that the benefits outweigh the risks for the intended patient population.

In general, women who have had children have a lower risk of breast cancer compared to women who have never given birth. However, new research has found that moms don’t experience this breast cancer protection until many years later and may face elevated risk for more than 20 years after their last pregnancy.

The Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund announced a total of 520 million yen (US$ 4.6 million) to support four partnerships to develop new lifesaving drugs and vaccines for malaria, tuberculosis, dengue and leishmaniasis. This includes three new projects and one that will receive continued funding.