Pharma News

Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada announce the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab) monotherapy, the company’s anti-PD-1 (programmed death receptor-1) therapy, at a dose of 2 mg/kg every three weeks, for the treatment of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors express PD-L1 as determined by an FDA-approved test and who have disease progression on or after platinum-containing chemotherapy. Patients with EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberrations should have disease progression on FDA-approved therapy for these aberrations prior to receiving KEYTRUDA. Under FDA’s accelerated approval regulations, this indication for KEYTRUDA is approved based on tumor response rate and durability of response. An improvement in survival or disease-related symptoms has not yet been established. Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in the confirmatory trials.

[adsense:336x280:8701650588]

Researchers from Stockholm University, in international collaboration with UK and Japan, has reached a breakthrough in understanding how fructose is transported into our cells. This could be a potential benefit for the development of novel treatments against some forms of cancer, obesity and diabetes. The results are published as an article in the scientific journal Nature.

WHO cautioned that "indiscriminate" use of antibiotics is increasingly leading to resistance to medicines and treatment failure even as it asked India and South East Asian nations to "urgently" address this threat to public health.

Short and high intensity exercise can reduce an adolescent's risk of developing a heart condition, revealed a new study by researcher Alan Barker and his University of Exeter team. The researchers observed that performing eight to ten minutes of high intensity interval exercise thrice a week can improve important markers of cardiovascular health. The study is published in the Journal American Journal of Physiology - Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

The world's largest catalogue of genomic differences among humans, has been created by an international team of scientists. This catalogue would provide researchers with powerful clues to help them establish why some people are susceptible to various diseases. The findings were detailed in two studies that appeared online in the Nature.

A new study from the University of California, Berkeley has found an association between sleep and body mass index. Teenagers and adults who go to bed late on weeknights are more likely to gain weight than their peers who hit the bed earlier.  Moreover, exercise, screen time, and the number of hours they slept did not mitigate this BMI increase, according to the study published in the October issue of the journal, Sleep.

Astellas Pharma Inc. and Chromocell Corporation collaborate for the development and commercialisation of therapeutics to treat neuropathic and other pain conditions.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed marketing of a new hearing aid that uses a laser diode and direct vibration of the eardrum to amplify sound. The combination of laser light pulses and a custom-fit device component that comes in direct contact with the eardrum is designed to use the patient’s own eardrum as a speaker and enables amplification over a wider range of frequencies for some hearing impaired persons. The EarLens Contact Hearing Device (CHD) is indicated for use by adults with mild to severe sensorineural hearing impairment.

U. S. Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to nivolumab (Opdivo Injection, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company) in combination with ipilimumab for the treatment of patients with BRAF V600 wild-type, unresectable or metastatic melanoma.