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Archive by author | Cassandra Willyard

05 Feb 2014 | 13:37 EST

As drug target reemerges, the question is to block or stimulate it

Posted by Cassandra Willyard | Categories: Drugs, drugs and more drugs

More than two decades ago, drugmakers searching for new hypertension medications unearthed a mysterious new cell receptor that responded to a hormone known as angiotensin II. This peptide hormone constricts blood vessels, but, oddly, blocking the so-called angiotensin II receptor type 2 (AT2) appeared to have no effect on blood pressure, so the target was largely ignored by drug developers. “Big pharma really just left the AT2 receptor by the side of the road,” says Tom McCarthy, chief executive of Spinifex Pharamceuticals, a company based in Melbourne, Australia, that is exploring the promise of targeting AT2.  Read more

Tags:

  • angiotensin
  • AT2
  • pain
  • target

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13 Dec 2012 | 11:37 EST

Neglected diseases see few new drugs despite upped investment

Posted by Cassandra Willyard | Categories: Drugs, drugs and more drugs, Infectious diseases

Neglected diseases see few new drugs despite upped investment

Over the past decade, neglected diseases have attracted increased attention and larger investments in research. Even often overlooked tropical diseases such as sleeping sickness and leishmaniasis have received more funding. “These Cinderella diseases, long ignored and underappreciated, are a rags-to-riches story,” said Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, in an address in May. But these newfound ‘riches’ have given rise to just a few dozen newly approved therapies and only a handful of truly novel drugs. A new analysis by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) finds that the rate of approvals for new compounds over the past decade is roughly the same as it was during the previous two-and-a-half decades, when the diseases received little attention.  Read more

Tags:

  • bedaquiline
  • delamanid
  • Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative
  • Médecins Sans Frontières
  • Neglected Diseases
  • World Health Organization

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16 Nov 2012 | 16:51 EST

Malaria vaccine results present infant immunization quandary

Posted by Cassandra Willyard | Categories: Malaria

Malaria vaccine results present infant immunization quandary

Babies receive a battery of vaccines after they’re born to protect them against dreaded diseases such as tetanus, whooping cough and polio. Public health officials in the developing world had hoped to soon add a malaria (Plasmodium falciparum) vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule to take advantage of the existing vaccine distribution system. However, new results from a trial of the leading candidate—a shot known as RTS,S, or Mosquirix—suggests that the vaccine reduces the risk of malaria by only a third in infants.  Read more

Tags:

  • malaria vaccine
  • Mosquirix

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22 Oct 2012 | 09:00 EST

Prisoners, hard hit by hepatitis C, decry lack of access to drugs

Posted by Cassandra Willyard | Categories: Drugs, drugs and more drugs, Policy

Prisoners, hard hit by hepatitis C, decry lack of access to drugs

David Proulx was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2003, but he suspects he contracted the virus decades earlier. He injected drugs in the 1970s and picked up several tattoos when he was first incarcerated in the early 1980s. Over the years, the infection wreaked havoc on his liver. Within a year of diagnosis, he received antiviral drugs to treat the disease, but the medicine failed to eliminate the virus. Proulx had run out of options. In 2011, however, the US Food and Drug Administration approved two new medications to treat hepatitis C. Clinical trials indicated that these drugs could help individuals like Proulx who had previously failed other therapies.  Read more

Tags:

  • Hepatitis C
  • Incivek
  • Victrelis

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