pharmaceutical industry

AstraZeneca, the UK-based maker of popular inhalers like Symbicort and Airsupra, announced Monday it plans to cap costs for patients using its inhalers in the U.S. at $35 per month starting June 1. The inhalers treat asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which combined affect roughly 41 million Americans and can make breathing extremely difficult.Do We Have to Send Humans to Mars for Exploration?The announcement comes after rival company Boehringer Ingelheim announced earlier this month that the cost of its…

If you have a dog or cat, chances are you’ve given your pet a flavored chewable tablet for tick prevention at some point. What if you could take a similar pill to protect yourself from getting Lyme disease?Tarsus Pharmaceuticals is developing such a pill for humans—minus the tasty flavoring—that could provide protection against the tick-borne disease for several weeks at a time. In February, the Irvine, California–based biotech company announced results from a small, early-stage trial showing that 24 hours after taking…

Scientific publisher Sage Journals has retracted three papers on abortion—including a controversial 2021 study on mifepristone, the medication at the center of a US legal battle.The 2021 study found that mifepristone, one of two pills used in a medication abortion, significantly increased the risk of women going to the emergency room following an abortion. The study, along with another retracted paper from 2022, was cited by US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in the April 2023 ruling that invalidated the Food and Drug…

Now some key patents have expired, and the US Food and Drug Administration has paved the way for biosimilar versions of insulin—so-called because they’re almost identical to another product already on the market. For a product to be biosimilar, it must be highly similar in structure to the original and work just as well in patients.Owen’s company, founded in 2020, has designed supercharged E. coli-like bacteria that can produce much greater amounts of insulin than existing strains used in insulin production. To do that,…

Another year, another round of inscrutable price increases for many prescription drugs. Over 700 medicines are seeing their list prices shoot up this January, according to an analysis by the organization 46brooklyn Research. The average price increase is slightly below the trend of recent years, but includes popular drugs used for weight loss like Ozempic and Mounjaro.Remake this Sci-Fi Film with Peter Capaldi!The Ohio-based 46brooklyn is a nonprofit corporation that describes its purpose as seeking “to improve the…

The purpose of the current trial is to assess the gel’s safety and longevity, not how well it prevents pregnancy. Participants were asked to use a back-up form of birth control while being enrolled in the trial.The gel is designed to dissolve at the end of its lifetime, so the men will be followed for two years to determine how long it takes for that to happen. Eisenfrats says the goal is to have a product that lasts one to two years.But men might want to restore their fertility before that time frame, so Contraline wants…

You booked this doctor’s appointment weeks in advance. You took off work, endured the trip here, filled out paperwork while a cooking show blared from a TV on the wall, and now you’re finally in the inner sanctum, awkwardly perched on an exam table and staring at a jar of tongue depressors. Your doctor comes in, listens as you describe what’s been bothering you. She nods, a wrinkle of concern crossing her forehead. She asks a few follow-up questions. Then she says, “I’m going to prescribe you something that isn’t designed…

Image: Adul10 (Shutterstock)Drug commercials in the U.S. are set to become more intelligible. On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration updated its regulations regarding prescription drug ads that air on TV or radio. The change will specifically mandate that a drug’s side effects and other potential dangers “must be presented in a clear, conspicuous, and neutral manner.”Lions on Oxytocin are Surprisingly ChillThis update has been in the works for a long time. In 2007, the federal government passed a law that expanded…

In a small initial test in people, researchers have shown that a single infusion of a novel gene-editing treatment can reduce cholesterol, the fatty substance that clogs and hardens arteries over time.The experiment was carried out in 10 participants with an inherited condition that causes extremely high LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol levels, which can lead to heart attack at an early age. Despite being on cholesterol-lowering medications, the volunteers were already suffering from heart disease. They joined a trial in New…

The current trial was sponsored by Novo Nordisk, the maker of Wegovy and Ozempic, and tracked patients for two years at locations worldwide. Half of the participants received weekly injections of semaglutide while the other half received a placebo. Neither group knew which they were getting. More than three-quarters of the patients had previously experienced a heart attack, and close to a quarter had chronic heart failure. The average age of the volunteers was 61.6, and about three-quarters were men.In patients taking…