Year: 2014

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;

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.

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.

(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.

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.

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.

Being married makes for a healthy heart, while being divorced or widowed is linked to higher rates of cardiovascular disease, according to a study of 3.5 million people released Friday. The study is the largest of its kind to show how heart health is linked to marital status, and was presented at the American College of Cardiology conference. "These findings certainly shouldn't drive people to get married, but it's important to know that decisions regarding who one is with, why, and why not may have important implications for vascular health," said lead author Carlos Alviar, cardiology fellow at New York University Langone Medical Center. People who were divorced had a higher likelihood of any vascular disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm, coronary artery disease and cerebrovascular disease when compared to single people, according to the study.