PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 21-Oct-2014 Contact: Rachel Steigerwald media@gastro.org 301-272-1603 American Gastroenterological Association @AmerGastroAssn Bethesda, MD (Oct. 21, 2014) If you are not getting the recommended seven-to-eight hours of sleep each night, you may be at increased risk of developing ulcerative colitis, according to a new study1 in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. "Both short and long durations of sleep have important health implications and are associated with increased overall mortality, cardiovascular disease and cancer," said lead study author Ashwin N. Ananthakrishnan, MD, MPH, Massachusetts General Hospital. "Our findings indicate that ulcerative colitis may potentially be added to this list. We found that less than six hours of sleep per day and more than nine hours of sleep per day are each associated with an increased risk of ulcerative colitis." Researchers conducted a prospective study of women who were enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) I since 1976 and NHS II since 1989 and followed through detailed biennial questionnaires with greater than 90 percent follow-up. The large size of the cohorts, prospective design and prolonged duration of follow-up provide a unique opportunity to examine the association between sleep duration and incident … Continue reading →

SAINT PREX, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ferring Pharmaceuticals announced today that its CORTIMENT MMX (budesonide) treatment for the induction of remission in patients with active, mild to moderate ulcerative colitis1 has received marketing approval from 27 European Union member states2 following the EU Mutual Recognition Procedure. CORTIMENT has been commercially available in the Netherlands since November 2013. Ferring plans to begin launching the product in the 27 additional European countries in the coming months. CORTIMENT contains budesonide, a locally acting glucocorticosteroid, in a novel oral tablet formulation utilizing MMX multimatrix colonic delivery technology. The approved dosing regimen for adult patients is one 9 mg tablet taken once daily for up to 8 weeks. In phase III studies, 2.4 to 3.9 times more patients achieved clinical and endoscopic remission with CORTIMENT compared to placebo, and no clinically significant glucocorticosteroid side effects were seen versus placebo after eight weeks of treatment (CORE I study and CORE II study respectively). 3 CORTIMENT has been developed by Cosmo Pharmaceuticals SpA. Ferring is the licensee in the EU and Asia (excluding Japan), Australia, Canada, Latin America and Africa. In the United States, where the product is available as UCERIS, the licensee is Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Dr. Simon Travis, … Continue reading →