Year: 2014

Danish pharmaceutical group Alk Abello expects to start selling its new dust mite allergy tablet in Europe and Japan around the end 2015 with the U.S. market a further year behind, its Chief Executive told Reuters on Thursday. The HDM SLIT-tablet, which just entered third phase in the development program in North America, could be the most important of three allergy tablets the company is developing in association with American healthcare company Merck, Alk’s Chief Executive Jens Bager said in an interview. “House dust mite-allergy is one of the most debilitating allergies and is often associated with allergic asthma and affects more than 30 million Americans.” He said that studies in Europe and Japan show Alk’s HDM SLIT-tablet is able to reduce dust mite allergy symptoms significantly, adding that there were few rival medicines on the market.

By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) – Half a million people fell sick with dangerous superbug strains of tuberculosis (TB) in 2012, but fewer than one in four were diagnosed, putting the rest at risk of dying due to the wrong medicines or no treatment at all. Latest data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), which says drug-resistant TB is a “global health security risk”, showed a third of the estimated 9 million people who contract TB in any form each year do not get the care they need. This has led to drug resistance spreading around the world at an alarming rate and has given rise to incurable strains of the bacterial infection – known as totally drug-resistant TB – which cannot be treated with any known medicines. “Earlier and faster diagnosis of all forms of TB is vital,” said WHO director general Margaret Chan as the U.N. health agency published new TB data on Thursday.

An experimental cancer vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline has failed in a second test – this time against lung cancer – but the British company said it still hoped to identify a sub-group of patients in which it would work. Thursday's news that the MAGE-A3 therapeutic vaccine did not help patients with non-small cell lung cancer in a late-stage study is a further blow to the high-risk, high-reward project after a similar setback in melanoma in September. The large Phase III study, involving more than 2,000 lung cancer patients, found that the experimental therapy did not help patients live longer without their disease recurring. Vincent Brichard, head of immunotherapeutics at GSK Vaccines, said the company was disappointed by the outcome but remained committed to the project.

Constant hunger pangs aren’t the only tip-off that your weight-loss plan has crossed over into potentially dangerous territory. If you’ve recently started a diet, check out these signs that you could be harming your health or setting yourself up for a weight-loss fail.