Nanoparticle drugs—tiny containers packed with medicine and with the potential to be shipped straight to tumors—were thought to be a possible silver bullet against cancer. However new cancer drugs based on nanoparticles have not improved overall survival rates for cancer patients…
FDA Endorses First Low Cost Biotech Drug
Federal health experts have unanimously endorsed a Novartis drug which is expected to become the first lower-cost copy of a biotech drug to reach the U.S. market. A panel of Food and Drug Administration experts ruled that the company’s version of…
Researchers Study Potential Blood Test for Prostate Cancer
Vanderbilt University researcher William Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues in Germany and Canada have demonstrated a method for detecting “cell-free” tumor DNA in the bloodstream. Mitchell believes the technique will be transformative in providing improved cancer diagnostics that can both predict…
Ebola Medic Flown to Germany for Anonymity
A South Korean medic exposed to Ebola while working in West Africa has been flown to Germany for infectious disease treatment because the patient’s anonymity would be better protected there, authorities in Berlin said Saturday. Doctors at Berlin’s renowned Charite hospital…
With Opdivo approval, Bristol-Myers arms for PD-1 battle against Merck’s Keytruda
The Bristol-Myers Squibb-vs.-Merck match in melanoma immunotherapy is on. Bristol-Myers ($BMY) scored FDA approval for its cancer immunotherapy Opdivo (nivolumab) three months ahead of schedule, setting it up for a head-to-head contest against Merck’s ($MRK) recent debut in the same class,…
Researchers Find Alternate Drug Therapy Lowers Antibodies
Findings of a three-year clinical trial led by University of Cincinnati (UC) transplant researchers suggest that a novel pre-operative drug therapy reduces antibodies in kidney patients with greater success than with traditional methods, with the potential to increase the patients’ candidacy…
Researchers Map Paths to Cancer Drug Resistance
A team of researchers led by Duke Cancer Institute has identified key events that prompt certain cancer cells to develop cancer drug resistance to otherwise lethal therapies. By mapping the specific steps that cells of melanoma, breast cancer, and a blood…
Drug Blocks Key Signal in Cancer Growth and Drug Resistance
An experimental cancer drug may block an important driver for the survival, growth and spread of cancer cells. The first clinical trial of an experimental drug, called pictilisib, found the safety profile to be manageable in cancer patients at doses that…
High Vancomycin Doses Fuel Risk of Kidney Damage in Children
Results of a small Johns Hopkins Children’s Center study show that hospitalized children given high-dose IV infusions of the antibiotic vancomycin to treat drug-resistant bacterial infections face an increased risk for kidney damage — an often reversible but sometimes serious complication….
Microcapsule Eliminates Toxic Punch of Experimental Anti-Cancer Drug
Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a sugar-based molecular microcapsule that eliminates the toxicity of an anticancer agent developed a decade ago at Johns Hopkins, called 3-bromopyruvate, or 3BrPA, in studies of mice with implants of human pancreatic cancer tissue. The encapsulated…