Drug

William Brewer, 33, is the author of I Know Your Kind (2017), a collection of poems about poverty and drug addiction in West Virginia, where he was born and grew up. Selected for the prestigious National Poetry Series in the US, and cited as an inspiration by Ocean Vuong, he has been described by New York magazine as “America’s poet laureate of the opioid crisis”. Psychiatry, debt and quantum gravity are among the themes of his first novel, The Red Arrow, narrated by a troubled ghostwriter urgently in search of a vanished…

Under the proposal, subject to shareholder approval, investors in the Stockholm-based company will receive 106 Swedish krona in cash for each share held. The price represents a 39% premium to the company’s share price of 76.50 Swedish krona on Friday, the day before The Wall Street Journal reported that the companies were in talk. In the U.S.—Swedish Match’s largest market, followed by Scandinavia—the company’s ZYN nicotine-pouch brand dominates a market that includes rival offerings from Altria…

Buying drugs on the street is a game of Russian roulette. From Xanax to cocaine, drugs or counterfeit pills purchased in non-medical settings may contain life-threatening amounts of fentanyl.  Physicians like me have seen a rise in unintentional fentanyl use from people buying prescription opioids and other drugs laced, or adulterated, with fentanyl. Heroin users in my community in Massachusetts came to realize that fentanyl had entered the drug supply when overdose numbers exploded.In 2016, my colleagues and I found…

Philip Morris International Inc. PM 1.79% is in advanced talks to acquire Swedish Match SWMA -0.58% AB, according to people familiar with the matter, in a deal that could be valued at roughly $15 billion or more and bolster the tobacco giant’s exposure to the rapidly growing market for smoke-free brands.The talks between U.S.-based Philip Morris and Stockholm-based Swedish Match could yield a deal as soon as this week,…

An experimental drug being clinically investigated for its effects on body weight in obese and overweight people has delivered record-breaking weight loss for participants in the trial – on par with surgical options, the company behind the drug suggests.  Tirzepatide, developed by American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly), is a once-weekly injection that promotes weight loss by mimicking the effects of natural hormones called incretins. These hormones lower blood sugar after we eat, in addition to…

A revolutionary weight loss drug could get users the effects of bariatric surgery without the permanent changes that it entails. Weight loss supplements have become a big market in recent years. This new drug may soon join the fray. The drug, which is being developed by pharmaceutical company Lilly is called tirzepatide. And, in a recent trial, it delivered up to 22.5 percent weight loss in adults with obesity. Participants testing a revolutionary weight loss drug lost 55 pounds on average Image source:…

3D rendition of T cells attacking cancer cells. Credit: La Jolla Institute for ImmunologyResearchers uncover a new strategy to avoid cancer immunotherapy side effects.It’s not often that a failed clinical trial leads to a scientific breakthrough.When patients in the UK started experiencing negative side effects during a cancer immunotherapy trial, researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and University of Liverpool went back, examined the data, and worked with patient samples…

Preliminary data from a large Phase 3 clinical trial is offering promising signs for a new anti-obesity drug. Called tirzepatide, the drug helped overweight and obese participants lose up to 22.5 percent of their total body weight over the 72-week trial.Last year the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a drug called Wegovy (or semaglutide) as a weight management tool for obese or overweight people. Wegovy was the first of a new class of anti-obesity treatments to be approved by the FDA.These drugs are designed…

The Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru scientists have conducted a study that revealed that Montelukast- a drug used for the treatment of Asthama has the potential to stop Covid variants from replicating within the body of the infected.  The study was published in the journal eLife. The study states that "montelukast sodium hydrate can be used as a lead molecule to design potent inhibitors to help combat SARS-CoV-2 infection." Montelukast, used to reduce inflammation caused by…