Health News

Risks of using cold and hay fever remedies in early pregnancy

Date: Jul-24-2013
A new worry for pregnant women to add to their list is use of decongestants, according to new study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. Researchers have found links between using over-the-counter decongestants during the first trimester and rare birth defects in the digestive tract, ear and heart. The research team, led by Dr. Allen Mitchell, used data spanning 17 years from the Slone Epidemiology Center Birth Defects Study at Boston University...

Promoting Clinical Trials MENA, 7-8 October 2013, Dubai, UAE

Date: Jul-24-2013
The global landscape for clinical trials has continued to evolve and change over the last ten years. One of the biggest changes has been the shift towards the emerging markets. The MENA region is generally one of the fastest growing economies in the world, one of the industries enjoying this increase in demand is the clinical research sector. Key factors for this include a large treatment naïve population, the improvement of the healthcare infrastructure and the large number of therapeutic indications...

Medical Devices PPM Toolbox, 5-6 November 2013, Frankfurt, Germany

Date: Jul-24-2013
Due to the new game and rules on the market, it is necessary for medical device companies to develop effective portfolio management processes. They need to select those product ideas that have the greatest commercial potential, and thereby will maximize the return on their investments. EBCG's Medical Devices PPM Toolbox will enable medical devices project and portfolio managers to define priorities and deliver on strategic objectives...

LogiMed European Medical Device Supply Chain Conference, 5-7 November 2013, Munich, Germany

Date: Jul-24-2013
How to cope with challenges that lie ahead for supply chain and operations leaders? 125+ medical device supply chain leaders will gather once again this November for LogiMed, to benchmark and share best practice. On offer are 40 case studies from medical device supply chain leaders representing the world's most successful manufacturers to help you identify how to improve visibility, drive efficiencies and impact the top and bottom line...

Inovio Pharmaceuticals' potent hTERT DNA cancer vaccine shows potential to reduce tumors and prevent tumor recurrence

Date: Jul-24-2013
Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE MKT: INO) announced today that in a preclinical study with two animal models, Inovio's hTERT (human telomerase reverse transcriptase) DNA cancer vaccine administered with Inovio's CELLECTRA® adaptive electroporation delivery technology generated robust and broad immune responses, broke the immune system's tolerance to its self-antigens, induced T-cells with a tumor-killing function, and increased the rate of survival...

After 3.5 year process, NICE recommends Revolade (eltrombopag) for treatment of chronic immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), UK

Date: Jul-24-2013
Adult patients in England and Wales living with chronic immune (idiopathic) thrombocytopenic purpura (cITP), an immune disorder associated with low blood platelet counts, will now be able to access Revolade® (eltrombopag) on the National Health Service (NHS), following final guidance (known as Technology Appraisal Guidance - TAG) issued today by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)...

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends heat ablation therapy for patients with varicose veins, UK

Date: Jul-24-2013
Covidien, a leading global provider of healthcare products, announced that a new guideline on the diagnosis and management of varicose veins has been issued today by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).[1] For the first time, NICE recommends heat ablation therapy as first line treatment instead of the more invasive surgical procedures currently being used...

Unbranded packets succeed in helping smokers quit

Date: Jul-24-2013
A much-awaited study from Australia, the only country in the world where cigarettes are sold in plain packs, suggests smokers find plain packaged tobacco less appealing. Furthermore, smokers said plain packaging also made them think more about quitting and want to put it higher on their list of priorities. Australia banned the sale of branded tobacco products in December 2012. Now they can only be sold in plain brown packs, bearing graphic health warnings that take up three quarters of the front of the pack...

Controlling genes with light

Date: Jul-24-2013
Although human cells have an estimated 20,000 genes, only a fraction of those are turned on at any given time, depending on the cell's needs - which can change by the minute or hour. To find out what those genes are doing, researchers need tools that can manipulate their status on similarly short timescales. That is now possible, thanks to a new technology developed at MIT and the Broad Institute that can rapidly start or halt the expression of any gene of interest simply by shining light on the cells...

Potential for drugs to 'switch off' high blood pressure

Date: Jul-24-2013
US researchers have designed new molecules that could be used as a starting point for developing drugs that "switch off" high blood pressure in the body. The scientists first studied natural molecules that the body uses to control blood pressure, identified the parts that are actively involved in switching off the signaling that leads to hypertension, and then designed "analogs" of the natural compounds to do the same. The work, which focuses on one natural compound in particular, is reported in the July 17th online issue of Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry...