New Alzheimer’s Drug Discouraging but Moving Forward
Elan will go ahead with larger trials of its Alzheimer’s drug, bapineuzumab, despite disappointing results in smaller trials, little fanfare, and falling company stocks. A desperate need for Alzheimer’s treatments drives the drug forward, albeit with little hope.
FDA Orders a Prescription Label Change
For the first time since a 2007 law that allows the FDA to order a prescription label to be changed was put into place, the agency has told biotech. company, Amgen, to change labels on drugs used to treat chemotherapy-induced anemia to indicate the possibility of the drugs iworsening the effects of …read more

More Than 300 New Meds Being Developed to Combat Mental Illness
A new report shows that U.S. pharmaceutical companies are developing 300+ new medicines to help those suffering from the wide range of mental illnesses. These new developments, which are all in clinical trials or awaiting FDA approval, include 89 medicines targeting dementias. The report and drug descriptions can be found here.
New U.S. Drug Application Submitted for Type 2 Diabetes Treatment
Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca have submitted a drug application for Onglyza (saxagliptin) to treat Type 2 Diabetes. The companies also simultaneously submitted a Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) to the European Medicines …read more

Late last week Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases canceled a government-funded U.S. trial of the Partnership for AIDS Vaccine Evaluation (PAVE) HIV vaccine. Dr. Fauci stated that the impending trial was to determine whether PAVE lowered the amount of HIV in infected blood, however he does feel that there is currently enough evidence that the vaccine would have its intended effect. Following a meeting to discuss what caused a similar trial conducted by Merck in 2007 to fail, Dr. Fauci has decided that a smaller trial should first be conducted before unleashing …read more

Biotech Company Warns of Damaged Vials of Breast Cancer Medication
Genentech has sent a letter to health care providers warning that there have been complaints of broken/damaged vials of its Herceptin 440 mg and BWFI (bacteriostatic water for injection) diluent used to treat HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. The company states that broken/damaged vials carry a small risk of loss of sterility which could cause infections in patients.
Cholesterol Medications Get the Okay for Some Children
The American Academy of Pediatrics has released new recommendations for cholesterol screening and treatment in children. Screening for children over age 2 who have risk factors for heart …read more

Reports coming out of Poland have potentially linked a trial of a new bird flu vaccine to the deaths of 21 homeless people:
Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus.

The medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, are being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus.
Authorities claim that the alleged victims received £1-2 to be tested with what they thought …read more