Past Weekly News Roundups
Sanofi, large French pharmaceutical company, and TB alliance, large have announced that they are collaborating in an attempt to accelerate new treatment for drug resistant TB. The agreement means that TB alliance will be working with Sanofi technicians on a number of compounds which Sanofi has research indicating success against TB but not yet tested.
Researchers at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, have reported the discovery of a molecule MMV390048, which appears to be a possible single dose malarial cure, which also works against a wide range of drug-resistant malarial strains. The molecule is stilling in testing and scheduled to enter clinical trials in 2013, but when mice were treated with a single dose, they were cured of malaria. SCI DEV
Researchers at the University of Missouri are experimenting with bacteria phage viruses, viruses that destroy bacteria, in an attempt kill off drug resistant bacteria. Their experiments were on bacteria in water filtration systems and showed 97% success rate when combined with chlorine against drug resistant bacteria. News-medical
University of London has announced the production of a handheld nanotech device which can read whether or not a patient has malaria as well as if it is drug-resistant. It uses nanotechnology to analyze the malarial DNA in the patient’s blood sample, and only takes 20 minutes to process. This devise could make the diagnosis and misdiagnosis (a major problem in many malaria cases) much simpler and cheaper for patient around the world. Nano werk
Researchers from the Riga East University Hospital have announced the creation of a drug called Delamanid, which has shown progress against both multidrug resistant TB and extensively drug resistant TB. The drug when taken over a course of 6 months resulted in 74.5% of patients with mdr or edr being cured or on a stable treatment plan. Science daily
The president’s council of advisors on science and technology announced a plan to double the number of new prescription drugs accepted by the FDA. The council is urging the FDA to release more drugs onto the market. This announcement comes after the Romney campaign attacks the Obama administration for over regulating the pharmaceutical industry. Medreps