Month: February 2014

By Ronnie Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A doctor who generally advises children to turn off electronic devices urges them to play “Stroke Hero,” a video game that teaches kids to identify stroke symptoms and summon help, according to a new study. “While I recognize the hazards of video games, and I recognize the need to limit screen time, what better way to enable children to save lives than to have them play a video game?” Dr. Olajide Williams, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health. Americans suffer nearly 800,000 strokes a year, and on average, one American dies from stroke every four minutes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Treatment administered within four and a half hours of the first signs of stroke can save lives and reverse disabling symptoms, said Williams, who is chief of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center.

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) – Two high-risk bets by GlaxoSmithKline on new ways to fight heart disease and cancer were dealt a double blow last year by dud clinical trials – but the company remains hopeful about both projects. Chief Executive Andrew Witty said on Wednesday there were still “intriguing” opportunities for its heart drug darapladib and MAGE-A3 therapeutic cancer vaccine. Many analysts stripped out forecasts for darapladib, which is designed to prevent heart attacks and strokes in a completely different way from cholesterol-lowering drugs, after it failed to reduce risks in the first of two big final Phase III trials in November. GSK, however, is continuing to investigate the drug’s role in coronary heart disease and Witty told analysts in a call following full-year results that further data on the approach would be presented at a medical meeting next month.

Can skier Ted Ligety take the drug he’s endorsing?        

A small Dutch company behind the Western world's first approved gene therapy priced its shares above the expected range in a U.S. stock offering on Wednesday, showing the current investor appetite for biotechnology. Amsterdam-based uniQure said it would sell 5.4 million shares at an initial public offering price of $17.00 each, netting it $81.9 million after expenses. UniQure won approval in November 2012 to sell its drug Glybera in Europe and intends to start selling it as a treatment for the ultra-rare disease lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPLD) with partner Chiesi in the first half of 2014.

The commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, plans to visit India for the first time in an official capacity next week as the agency works to keep sub-standard food and drugs from entering the United States. The FDA's Wednesday announcement of the visit, planned for February 10-18, comes less than two weeks after the FDA banned products from a fourth facility owned by Indian drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd due to manufacturing violations, effectively shutting the company out of the U.S. market for the foreseeable future. India is the second-largest exporter of drugs to the United States after Canada and the eighth-largest food exporter. Indian companies supply 40 percent of all drugs consumed in the United States, yet quality control problems have been rampant.