Category Archives: Drugs

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Rival hepatitis C drugs from Merck & Co Inc and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc are effective in patients also infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to data released on Tuesday. The Vertex drug had the more impressive results, the data showed. The results from midstage trials follow notification last month from U.S. regulators and Merck that use of the company's Victrelis drug in such "co-infected" patients could lessen the effectiveness of some medicines used to treat patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. Those findings involved "boosted" HIV protease inhibitors. Both Victrelis, also known as boceprevir, and Vertex's Incivek, or telaprevir, are protease inhibitors designed to block an enzyme that the hepatitis C virus requires to replicate. Since key HIV drugs are also protease inhibitors, which use the same pathway as the new hepatitis C drugs, there is a potential for drug interaction, said Dr. Douglas Dietrich, professor of medicine at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine and lead investigator on the Incivek trial. He said 74 percent of trial patients treated with Incivek followed by the standard regimen of interferon and ribavirin were free of the hepatitis C virus, or HCV, … Continue reading →

Last updated at 13:25, Tuesday, 06 March 2012 FOUR men who transported drugs into South Cumbria from Merseyside have been jailed for a total of 18-and-a-half years. Title Author Copyright Description Preston Crown Court yesterday heard how Liverpool dealers Nicholas Flaherty and Kurtis Carney used a Furness address as a safe house for their drugs operation so they could more easily blend in with the local community. One of them used taxis to run around the streets and make deliveries. A dirty phone enabling contact between addicts and dealers was used by 36 Barrow addicts requesting a drugs sale. The pipeline of drugs to Barrow was serviced every four to five days during the period the conspiracy ran. Andrew Millington and Daniel Barclay, both of Barrow, were also convicted for their involvement in the drugs ring. The court was told that when an address in Lindal Street was searched, police discovered a machete under the doormat, a bag of knives in a kitchen cupboard and a shotgun cartridge on a kitchen worktop. See original here: Judge jails drugs gang for 18 years … Continue reading →

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/fa2356/china_asthmatic_pr) has announced the addition of the "China Asthmatic Prescription Drugs Sales Data 2006-2010" report to their offering. The series of China Prescription Drug (CPD) sales reports have systemically analyzed Chinese prescription drug market, according to different therapeutic areas. All market estimates of drug utilization in China are based on hospital drug prescription and drug purchasing data from extensive hospital coverage in 16 major cities and more than 300 hospitals. Sampled hospitals are from major Chinese cities across different geographic locations, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Xian, Shenyang, Harbin and Zhengzhou, covering significant percentages of all hospitals in these regions. Market shares from all major manufacturers including multinational and Chinese pharmaceutical companies and key products are analyzed systemically. The comprehensive prescription data in China will present you a clear picture of the competition landscape of Chinese drug market for each therapeutic area (such as cancer, hypertension, diabetes, to name a few) and the market potential for your company's product(s) that already marketed in China or if you are planning to bring your drugs to the China market. This series of China CPD reports have been indispensable references for all levels of decision makers … Continue reading →

5 March 2012 Last updated at 06:00 ET US Vice-President Joe Biden is visiting Mexico and Honduras amid calls by regional leaders for a new debate on decriminalising drug use. Several Central American presidents, faced with rising drug violence in their countries, have spoken recently of the need for a policy change. The US remains opposed to decriminalisation, US officials say. In Mexico, Mr Biden will meet President Felipe Calderon and the three candidates in July's presidential vote. He then travels to Honduras, where he will hold talks with President Porfirio Lobo and fellow leaders from El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Last week, the Organization of American States (OAS) warned that drug gangs were posing a growing threat to democracy in Latin America. Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, a retired army general, has ordered his nation's army to join the fight against the trafficking gangs but also called for the possible decriminalisation of drugs. President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica told Bloomberg last week that legalising drugs in central America deserved "serious debate". Dan Restrepo, the top Latin American official in the White House, said that Mr Biden expected a "robust conversation" about the security problems posed by … Continue reading →

Drug traffickers devise new and strange ways to smuggle narcotics, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) director Colonel Ibrahim Issa al-Buainain has said. We once arrested an Asian man who had concealed drugs inside dates. Some smugglers put drugs in honey jars or hide it in the collar of their clothes. They also put them in womens clothes. However, the most notorious way of smuggling the contraband is swallowing drugs packed as capsules. Sometimes, they burst open in the smugglers stomach, leading to the carriers death. Such an incident happened two months ago in a Gulf state, al-Buainain said in an interview to Arabic daily Arrayah. Even though there are a few addicts in the country, the situation in Qatar is very different from other countries, the DEA director said. Addicts around the world can be seen roaming the streets and sometimes occupying the squares and public places. The number of addicts in Qatar is limited and they are unnoticeable. The Qatari society is a conservative one that takes care of the addict. The government and its various institutions shoulder the responsibility of treating them, al-Buainain noted. Drugs are substances that deprive the user of his reasoning capacity. They can be classified … Continue reading →

Nadira Gunatilleke Investigations conducted by the Health Ministry have discovered that the two drugs provided to De Soysa Maternity Hospital are of high quality and nothing was wrong with the quality of the drugs, as stated by a specialist doctor who gave evidence in connection with the death of a mother, a Health Ministry spokesman said. According to the spokesman the two drugs, Augmentin and Meropenum provided to the hospital are of high quality and not affected by any quality failures. The Health Ministrys Medical Supplies Division does not supply drugs in their brand names but supply drugs in their generic names. The generic name of the drug is Coamoxiclav and not Augmentin. Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena ordered a full investigation into the death of the 27-year mother who died at De Soysa Maternity Hospital, Colombo after a caesarian operation. Two teams from the Medical Supplies Division and the National Drug Quality Laboratory and the National Cosmetic Devices and Drugs Regulatory Authority were sent to conduct investigations, he said. Giving evidence a specialist doctor attached to the hospital had stated that the mother could have been saved if good quality antibiotics had been available. The quality of drugs should be … Continue reading →

LE MARS, Iowa (KTIV) - Marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamines are three drugs you hear quite a bit about, and have for years. But what about plant food, bath salts, herbal incense, and potpourri? Do you know what they are? You should. These are the fastest growing substances being abused. Many of these new drugs are marketed as legal on the internet or even sold over the counter in some states. But they're often abused because people use them differently than how they're labeled and sold. Several newer drugs including synthetic cannabis called K2 are being sold as incense or bath salts. Juvenile Court Officer Andrea Dreckman has been hearing about these drugs for almost two years. "They'll talk about how their friends will pass out and they'll keep watch over them to make sure that their hearts are still beating, you know that they don't need to call the ambulance to come and get them," said Dreckman. Dreckman says she's seen kids, as young as 15, abuse these types of drugs. She says many of them admit the experience was frightening, but doesn't necessarily mean they stopped. "I've had kids use it and tell me that they're never going to … Continue reading →

5 March 2012 Last updated at 06:37 ET A businessman, cleared of three murder charges and drugs dealing, has been ordered to hand his home to the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca). The High Court ruled that Arran Coghlan, 40, from Cheshire, used drug dealing profits to buy his 1m home. "The court ruled Arran Coghlan's family home was funded by criminal activity, now he must hand it over," said Soca. The case was referred by Greater Manchester Police to the former Assets Recovery Agency. A Soca statement said the agency's civil recovery application stated that Mr Coghlan had derived his home through drug trafficking and money laundering over a significant period. Charges were dropped against Mr Coghlan in 2010 when he was accused of shooting dead Stephen Akinyemi in a fight at his home in Alderley Edge in February. Mr Coghlan was cleared in 1996 of shooting Chris Little dead at the wheel of his Mercedes in Marple, Stockport. Seven years later Mr Coghlan stood trial for the murder of drug dealer David Barnshaw, who was kidnapped and forced to drink petrol before being burned alive in the back of a car in Stockport in 2001. He was … Continue reading →

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - One of the pledges of the Obama administration's healthcare overhaul was to enable cheaper copies of expensive biotech drugs, but the savings may not be as deep or come as quickly as hoped. Healthcare companies and industry experts say questions over how the market will work and the specter of patent litigation mean robust competition for generic biotech drugs might wait until the end of the decade. The regulatory requirements - which could force drugmakers to spend more money on testing - could mean eventual cost savings for payers of as little as 10 or 20 percent per treatment. That discount is paltry compared with savings of up to 90 percent for traditional generic medicines sold at U.S. pharmacies once the patents on brand-name pills expire. U.S. health regulators issued their first draft of guidelines governing that process in February. Drugmakers and industry experts say the proposed rules still fall short of providing a clear understanding of the best way to develop this market. "It should be the next bolus of growth for the generic drug industry and we need to fight to get a substitutable, interchangeable biogeneric marketplace," said Heather Bresch, chief executive officer at … Continue reading →

Monday, March 5, 2012 ONE of the inmates at Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) in Barangay Handumanan, Bacolod is now facing additional charges after the greyhound operation, a surprise inspection undertaken by authorities on inmates in the jail, conducted by operatives of BMJP-Western Visayas Friday. BJMP-Western Visayas conducted a separate greyhound operations in its facilities in Barangays Handuman and Taculing Friday and Saturday. Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos. In the Handumanan operation, BJMP-Western Visayas recovered from the cabinet of Mario Segovia a box containing three plastic sachets of suspected shabu, P17,000 cash, bank check and a piggy bank with several coins. BJMP also recovered 30 units of cellular phones and bladed weapons from different inmates at Barangay Handumanan. Senior Jail officer 1 Leo Lacierna, in an interview over a local radio station, said BJMP personnel who will be found to have connived with or are protecting the inmates will also face charges. Once it is proven in court that Segovia possessed drugs inside the jail, he will face additional charges for violation of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. Segovia was also detained for violation of RA … Continue reading →