Things heat up in Washington as FDA is called to task for a controversial contracts deal with a local
public relations firm. Both the Senate and the House are looking for answers, and the feds no longer have a PR firm
to run damage control.
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Some say it’s just another pharma facing its patent cliff. But others say this company’s got it worse.
With new CEO John Lechleiter in charge, can Lilly find its way back from the edge?
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The more research they do, the more evidence Ohio State University scientists find that specific elements of marijuana can be good for the aging brain by reducing inflammation there and possibly even stimulating the formation of new brain cells. The research suggests that the development of a legal drug that contains certain properties similar to those in marijuana might help prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
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The British Lung Foundation is calling for everyone over 35 with Asthma or the progressive illness Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) to be retested following evidence of confusion over diagnosis and treatment of the two respiratory diseases. A survey of 776 GPs from all over the UK carried out for the charity by Doctors.net.uk shows that most have difficulty differentiating between Asthma or COPD, causing misdiagnosis and distress amongst patients.
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New research could explain why females of many species have multiple partners. Published on Friday 21 November 2008 in leading journal Science, the study was carried out by a team from the Universities of Exeter (UK), Okayama (Japan) and Liverpool (UK). Females of most species, including many mammals, mate with multiple partners. The driving forces for this practice, known as ‘polyandry’, have been a mystery for evolutionary biologists for decades.
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Spending on television advertising might be on the rise, but the consumer ad spend for prescription
drugs is seeing a downward trend.
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With millions of baby boomers entering late adulthood, the number of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is expected to drastically rise over the next several decades. A team of national researchers, led by Emory University, has developed a rapid screening test to detect mild cognitive impairment (MCI) - often the earliest stage of AD. The findings are published in the online edition of Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
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Almost every day brings news of an apparent breakthrough against cancer, infectious diseases, or metabolic conditions like diabetes, but these rarely translate into effective therapies or drugs, and even if they do clinical development usually takes well over a decade.
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Once a breeding ground for dense jargon about mechanisms of action and prescribing information, Web
sites like Centocor’s new Medversation are giving doctors consumer-friendly content to help them spell out
treatment options in a language everyone can understand.
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Research from the University of Pittsburgh published in the Nov. 20 edition of Heredity could finally provide evidence of the first stages of the evolution of separate sexes, a theory that holds that males and females developed from hermaphroditic ancestors. These early stages are not completely understood because the majority of animal species developed into the arguably less titillating separate-sex state too long ago for scientists to observe the transition.
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