Drug addicts benefit from HIV drugs, too

Drug abusers benefit just as much from HIV drugs as people who are infected sexually or some other way, Canadian researchers reported on Sunday.Their finding, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and presented at an international AIDS meeting in Mexico City, contradicts widespread worry that drug abusers cannot stick to treatment.

"A large number of prior reports have demonstrated that because of issues of social instability related to illicit drug addiction, HIV-infected injecting drug users may not be deriving the full benefits of HAART (HIV drugs)," Dr. Julio Montaner of the University of British Columbia and St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, Canada, and colleagues wrote.

In many places, drug users are less likely to be prescribed the lifesaving drugs.

Montaner and colleagues studied 3,116 patients at Canadian clinics between August 1996 and June 2006, of whom 915, or 29.4 percent, were injecting drug users.

They all got highly active antiretroviral therapy or HAART -- the cocktails of drugs that help control human immunodeficiency virus, although they do not provide a cure.

After five years, just over 26 percent of the drug abusers and nearly 22 percent of people infected another way died. The difference was not statistically significant, Montaner's team said.

Further analysis indicated similar rates of death for both groups, after adjustments were made for age, sex, baseline AIDS diagnosis and other factors

Disclosing drug makers payments to docs gets boost

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer Tue May 13, 5:02 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Legislation that would require prescription drug makers to disclose payments to doctors got a boost Tuesday when Eli Lilly and Co. broke ranks with the industry and endorsed the bill.

Lawmakers gained Eli Lilly's support after they agreed to raise the payment limit requiring disclosure from $25 to $500. The lawmakers also agreed to apply the legislation to all drug and medical device makers. Previously, the proposed disclosures would have applied only to companies with more than $100 million in annual revenue.

The legislation addresses concerns that payments, such as picking up the tab for dinner or paying travel expenses for a conference at an exotic locale, can influence a doctor's prescribing habits. The legislation doesn't ban the payments, but it does require that companies report them, beginning March 31, 2011.

The legislation would pre-empt laws in the few states that already require drug makers to disclose their payments to doctors.

John C. Lechleiter, Eli Lilly's president and CEO, said the pre-emption was an important addition to the bill.

"This helps patients, businesses and doctors alike by setting expectations and creating a more efficient system for gathering, reporting and understanding such data," Lechleiter said.

Last year, the company was the first drug maker to publicly report all of its educational grants and charitable contributions.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and top Democratic co-sponsor, Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, said Eli Lilly's endorsement shows "transparency's time has come."

"Transparency brings about accountability and benefits everyone, consumers most of all," Grassley said.

The lawmakers are pressing to get provisions of The Physician Payments Sunshine Act into a bill later this year that would prevent payment cuts to doctors caring for Medicare patients.
source:http://news.yahoo.com/

Cancer drug sales could hit $80 billion by 2011: IMS

Thu May 15, 2:04 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sales of cancer drugs will grow at nearly double the rate of the global pharmaceutical market and could reach $80 billion by 2012, according to IMS Health, which tracks prescription drug sales.

Expensive new treatments, an increasing number of patients on chemotherapy in major markets and evidence that more people in emerging markets are gaining access to modern targeted therapies will contribute to sales of cancer drugs growing at a compound rate of 12 to 15 percent, IMS said.

In 2008, sales of oncology products will exceed $48 billion, contributing nearly 17 percent of global pharmaceutical sales growth this year, according to the IMS Global Oncology Forecast released on Thursday.

"Double-digit sales growth in oncology drugs will be fueled by increased use of targeted therapeutic agents introduced over the past 10 years, along with first-time innovations coming to the market and longer treatment periods for growing numbers of patients," Titus Plattel, IMS vice president for oncology, said in a statement.

IMS expects growth to be fueled by the introduction of 25 to 30 new chemical entities between 2008 and 2012, as expensive new biotechnology drugs and the increasing use of combination therapies contribute to the exploding cost of treatment.

Data from clinical studies of many of the newest cancer drugs will be presented and discussed at the nation's largest oncology meeting later this month in Chicago. Much of the data will be unveiled on Thursday ahead of the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

Several factors could serve to moderate growth over the next five years, IMS said. They include financial constraints of payers, slowing growth of some current blockbuster therapies and patent expirations of four cancer drugs with annual sales exceeding $1 billion, including Eli Lilly's Gemzar and Taxotere from Sanofi-Aventis .

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot; editing by Carol Bishopric)
Source : news.yahoo.com

Drug ad effects on people need more study: FDA

By Susan Heavey Thu May 15, 6:15 PM ET

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (Reuters) - Ads for prescription drugs need to be clear and direct and government needs to study the effects these ads have on consumer behavior, particularly among the elderly and minorities, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel of outside experts said on Thursday.

"It's about how it's understood and how it's used. It's impact," panel member Ellen Peters, a researcher from Oregon, said.

Data shows that advertisements for drugs prompt people to see their doctors, but it is not clear if consumers understand potential benefits and risks of the drugs being promoted by pharmaceutical companies.

Panelist Michael Goldstein, associate director at the nonprofit group the Institute for Healthcare Communication, told the FDA that it should find ways to tackle "the woefully inadequate evidence we have about what ... direct-to-consumer advertising is actually doing."

The FDA is seeking input from advisers as it prepares to report to Congress about how ads impact consumers, especially older people and children, blacks, Hispanics and other minorities.

Legislation that took effect in March allows the FDA to ask to review ads before the public sees them and to impose fines if an ad is misleading. It also empowered the FDA to study the effect of such advertising on the public.

Last year, 68,000 promotions including commercials and print ads, magnets and pens, were submitted to the FDA, according to Kristin Davis, deputy director for the FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications.

"In an ideal world we'd look at everything," she said, noting that staff levels make that impossible. Instead, the agency tries to target promotions, including ads, that are likely to have the biggest impact.

Drug companies spent nearly $29.9 billion in 2005 on advertising, free samples, and sales staff to promote brand name products, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health published last year.

More than $4 billion of that was spent on consumer ads compared to $429 million for ads directed at doctors.

U.S. lawmakers are investigating whether drug companies use marketing tricks to mislead consumers, especially through television commercials. Researchers have said drug companies use gimmicks such as small type, fast speech and flashy graphics to emphasize benefits and downplay risks.

Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat overseeing the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee investigation, wants drug companies to make commercials that are more clear or face tougher regulations and possible restrictions.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

Mutant mice show new pathway in drug addiction

Wed May 21, 1:09 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - Scientists experimenting with genetically-modified mice said on Wednesday they had unveiled a molecular pathway that helps explain drug addiction and appetite.

The discovery focuses on the chemical process by which people become substance-dependent, according to the study, published by the British journal Nature.

Pleasure-giving drugs such as cocaine and heroine -- as well as food -- work by boosting levels of a messenger chemical called dopamine that stimulates the brain's "reward" centre.

But dopamine itself is only one part of a molecular cascade that leads to dependence.

Researchers led by Jean-Antoine Girault of the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris looked at a brain protein called DARPP-32 which helps the dopamine signalling process.

The team found that when lab mice were given a jolt of cocaine, amphetamine or morphine, DARPP-32 built up in part of the brain called the striatum.

They then created mice whose DNA had been modified so that the gene expressing DARPP-32 turned out a slightly altered form of this protein -- a form where just one amino acid building-block had been changed.

Mutant mice and wild mice were given two shots of cocaine or morphine seven days apart. The drugs had far less effect on the engineered mice, as shown in their movement, and these rodents were far less likely to crave another dose.

Just as interesting was the discovery that mutant mice trained to use their noses to poke a lever mechanism that delivered a food pellet were far less likely to push for the reward compared with their wild counterparts.

"Taken together these results show that (the) mutation... alters long-lasting responses to drugs of abuse, and decreases motivation for food reward," the study says.

Finding a pharmaceutical drug that can block the accumulation of DARPP-32 is a promising avenue for tackling addictions as well as certain kinds of mental illness in which dopamine is suspected to play a role.

Knowledge gained from this work could also help fine-tune treatment for Parkinson's disease, which is caused by dopamine depletion, France's National Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm) said in a press release.