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| U.S. FDA moves to offset shortage of common saline solution Friday, Mar 28, 2014 12:17 PM PDT (Reuters) - Moving to offset shortages of a common saline used in hospitals and dialysis centers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday that it will temporarily allow Fresenius Kabi USA LLC to distribute normal saline from its manufacturing facility in Norway. The FDA said the initial shipments would help but not resolve shortages of 0.9 percent sodium chloride injection, also known as normal saline. The FDA said it is continuing to work with Baxter Healthcare Corp, B.Braun Medical Inc. and Hospira Inc to restore their supplies to hospitals and health clinics. Full Story | Top |
| Pot-smoking style linked to addiction risk Friday, Mar 28, 2014 12:06 PM PDT  By C.E. Huggins NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Marijuana smokers' behavior is more important than the potency of their pot or how much of the psychoactive ingredient THC they take in for predicting who will become dependent, according to a small new study. Researchers have debated whether smokers of high-potency cannabis varieties are at greater risk of addiction because they get more THC, or if they compensate for the pot's strength by using or inhaling less of it. But it's their style of pot smoking that predicted who was most likely to become dependent. Most previous research into cannabis dependence has looked mainly at how frequently a person uses cannabis, Van der Pol and her team note in the journal Addiction. Full Story | Top |
| Massachusetts bans sale of FDA-approved Zogenix painkiller Friday, Mar 28, 2014 11:25 AM PDT  By Susan Heavey WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Officials in Massachusetts have blocked sales of Zogenix's controversial but U.S.-approved painkiller Zohydro, prompting the drugmaker to criticize what it called an "unprecedented action." The state's ban "only serves to unfairly restrict patient access," the company said in a statement late Thursday. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick announced the Zohydro ban in a speech on Thursday, formally declaring a public health emergency stemming from the abuse of opioids in the New England state. Bradley Galer, chief medical officer of Zogenix, said Massachusetts officials are misguided about Zohydro's potency and dosage, and noted that other painkillers without abuse-resistant technologies are already on the U.S. market. The drug has since come under further scrutiny from members of Congress, dozens of state attorney generals, medical groups and drug treatment experts seeking to block the drug even as the FDA's top official has defended its action. Full Story | Top |
| Los Angeles couple get 3 years in jail in Qatar for death of adopted child Friday, Mar 28, 2014 10:52 AM PDT A Los Angeles couple was sentenced to three years in jail in Qatar on Thursday for causing the death of their adopted African-born daughter, who was found to have died of starvation, in a case that has raised concern in Washington. Matthew and Grace Huang were arrested in January last year after their 8-year-old daughter, Gloria, died unexpectedly. Full Story | Top |
| FDA staff review raises questions about MannKind diabetes device Friday, Mar 28, 2014 10:08 AM PDT  By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A review of MannKind Corp's experimental inhaled insulin device by U.S. Food and Drug Administration staff raised questions about its safety and effectiveness but was less damning than some investors had expected. The company's shares initially rose as much as 10.6 percent before falling back amid conflicting opinions from analysts on how the FDA will likely rule. The reviewers issued their report ahead of a meeting on Tuesday of outside advisers to the FDA, who will discuss clinical trial data and advise on whether the product, Afrezza, should be approved. The FDA is not obliged to follow the advice of its advisory panels but typically does so. Full Story | Top |
| GM stops selling some Cruze small cars, offering no reason Friday, Mar 28, 2014 10:06 AM PDT  By Ben Klayman DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co said on Friday it had told its dealers to stop selling certain Chevrolet Cruze small cars without saying why, in another blow to a company already facing a crisis over defective ignition switches linked to at least 12 deaths. The automaker said the affected Cruze cars, 2013 and 2014 models equipped with a 1.4-liter turbo engine, are not being recalled. The action only covers the affected models that are unsold on dealer lots, which make up about one-third of the vehicle's inventory at dealers, a GM spokesman said. The 1.4-liter gas turbo engine accounts for about 60 percent of the Cruze's retail sales mix in any given month, a GM spokesman said. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. wants at least $1 billion from drugmakers who delay generics Friday, Mar 28, 2014 08:52 AM PDT By David Ingram WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission seeks a settlement of $1 billion or more from pharmaceutical companies it has sued for delaying the sale of cheaper medicines after patents on brand-name drugs may have expired, an FTC official told a legal conference on Friday. In the settlements, makers of brand-name drugs pay millions of dollars to generics companies while they delay putting their products on the U.S. market. A panel moderator at the American Bar Association's spring antitrust meeting asked Deborah Feinstein, the director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, what developments to expect in the coming year. "The consumer harm there is extremely significant, and so we have a tremendous amount of resources there and hope to come out with a victory one way or another in those cases." Defendants in the lawsuits include Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc, owned by AbbVie Inc; Full Story | Top |
| White House unveils plan to cut methane from oil, gas sector Friday, Mar 28, 2014 08:50 AM PDT  The White House said on Friday it will take a hard look at whether new regulations are needed to cut emissions of methane from the oil and gas industry, part of President Barack Obama's plan to address climate change. Regulators will start by proposing new rules later this year to reduce venting and flaring from oil and gas wells on public lands, said Dan Utech, Obama's top energy and climate aide. The Environmental Protection Agency is going to study this year whether additional broader regulations are needed for methane emissions under the Clean Air Act, Utech told reporters. Full Story | Top |
| Eating cruciferous vegetables may lower inflammation Friday, Mar 28, 2014 08:35 AM PDT By Shereen Jegtvig NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In a study of more than 1,000 Chinese women, those who ate the most cruciferous vegetables had substantially less inflammation than those who ate the fewest. Cruciferous vegetables include cabbage, broccoli, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, kale and cauliflower, and eating them is often encouraged as a way to lower risk for heart disease and cancer. Based on their findings, the study authors say the health benefits of these vegetables may be at least partly a result of their anti-inflammatory effects. "Our group and others have found that consumption of fruits and vegetables, particularly cruciferous vegetables, was associated with lower total mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality - however, the potential mechanisms behind this association are not well understood," Dr. Gong Yang told Reuters Health by email. Full Story | Top |
| Idera says drug safe, well tolerated in psoriasis study Friday, Mar 28, 2014 08:25 AM PDT (Reuters) - Idera Pharmaceuticals Inc said its lead experimental drug for the most common form of psoriasis was found to be safe and well tolerated by patients after 12 weeks of treatment in a mid-stage trial. Idera said the drug, codenamed IMO-8400, reduced the severity of skin lesions in patients with plaque psoriasis, compared with a placebo. Idera said data from the study would support the drug's development as a treatment for rare autoimmune diseases and B-cell lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, with certain genetic mutations. The data provides some validation of the drug's mechanism both for future B-cell lymphoma studies and for the potential of Idera's other drug, IMO-9200, Piper Jaffray analyst Edward Tenthoff wrote in a note. Full Story | Top |
| Fly brain 'atlas' opens door to linking human neurons to actions Friday, Mar 28, 2014 08:09 AM PDT By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) - Research unveiled on Thursday identifies the brain neurons that cause every behavior fruit fly larvae execute, raising the tantalizing possibility that neuroscientists will be able to construct a similar "atlas" in people. Such a human brain atlas is one goal of the $100 million BRAIN Initiative that President Barack Obama announced a year ago, and the fly research raises hopes that it will be possible to deal with the data deluge that project will generate. For the study, which was published online by the journal Science, scientists led by biologist Marta Zlatic of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm research center in Virginia first activated a few neurons at a time in the larvae of the fruit fly drosophila, using a technique called optogenetics, in which light causes particular neurons to fire. She and her team then compiled thousands of hours of video recordings of how 37,780 fly larvae behaved in response to each neuronal activation. Full Story | Top |
| App, doctor pep talks lower diabetes patients' blood sugar Friday, Mar 28, 2014 07:53 AM PDT By Ronnie Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Dr. Guillaume Charpentier believes a smartphone app he is testing on people with diabetes in France works best when it alerts doctors that frustrated patients need help managing their disease. The Diabeo mobile phone program, which recommends insulin dosages, helped people with type 1 diabetes lower their blood-sugar levels in a six-month study. Now a new analysis of the data shows the app markedly improved glucose levels among patients who used it relatively infrequently, raising red flags for their healthcare providers who then intervened. "What the electronic system is not able to do is the magic of the doctor - to give motivational support to the patient, to encourage the patient to do what the patient does not want to do," Charpentier told Reuters Health. Full Story | Top |
| Bombardier didn't report Canada jet-fuel spill; cleanup continues Friday, Mar 28, 2014 07:49 AM PDT  By Solarina Ho TORONTO (Reuters) - Bombardier Inc said on Thursday it had spilled 10,000 liters (2,642 gallons) of kerosene in February at its Mirabel plant outside of Montreal in Quebec, but failed to report the accident with environment officials immediately. "Everyone was focused on the decontamination and the process for filing the paper work did not happen immediately," spokeswoman Haley Dunne told Reuters. Full Story | Top |
| As U.S. momentum stocks take beating, some sectors benefit Friday, Mar 28, 2014 07:04 AM PDT  By Ryan Vlastelica and David Gaffen NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors in some of the past year's hottest U.S. stocks have been given a savage lesson in the risks of so-called "momentum trading". A group of 24 such companies compiled by Credit Suisse has lost $63 billion in market value, or almost 19 percent, so far in March. One of them, streaming video service Netflix, has declined on 15 of the last 17 trading days, while another, online travel service Priceline, is on pace to for its worst month in nearly two years, while Twitter on Wednesday sank below its November first-day closing price for the first time since December, when the company had publicly traded for less than a month. The sell off may well have further to go, investors warn. Full Story | Top |
| GSK lifts emerging market bet with full control of Indonesia arm Friday, Mar 28, 2014 06:48 AM PDT  GlaxoSmithKline is betting more on Indonesia by taking full control of its consumer healthcare unit in the country, underscoring a drive by the drugmaker to build up its presence in fast-growing emerging markets. GSK has paid 465 billion rupiahs ($40 million) to Sarasvati Venture Capital for the 30 percent of the Indonesian consumer healthcare operation it did not previously own, giving it 100 percent of a business that sells non-prescription products like Panadol painkillers and Sensodyne toothpaste. At the same time, GSK has sold its non-core local Insto eye drops brand to Pharma Healthcare and agreed to divest its factory at Bogor, Indonesia, to PT Pharma Healthcare for a combined total of 133 billion rupiahs. "This transaction is a further example of GSK focusing its business in strategically important growth markets such as Indonesia. Full Story | Top |
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