Love and Other Drugs - Episode 16 The "Love Other Drugs" series is presented by Motown's own recording artists: "MPrynt" Get to know the production team behind MPrynt "GOOOOOOOO!!! Music" P... By: MPrynt … Continue reading →

Although theres no data to pinpoint when exactly the prescription drug addiction boomed in town, Liz Jorgensen, a Ridgefield drug counselor, sent 30 to 40 people to rehab for prescription drug addiction from September 2009 to September 2010. The prescription opiate crisis in the United States kills more than 40 people per day. Although that figure which many estimate is now more than 50 seems distant from a town like Ridgefield, the reality of this devastating situation is that nobody can afford to ignore it anymore. Seventeen overdose incidents occurred in 2012 in Ridgefield. The number of overdose deaths from prescription opiates has tripled over the past decade; they now kill more than heroin and cocaine combined, said Marita Bonanni, who has worked in Danbury Hospitals Emergency Department since 2000. Its an epidemic that is everywhere, not just in cities or urban areas. While prescription drugs have proven they are more deadly than street-level ones, the prescription opiates are merely the first step in an insidiously destructive cycle of drug use and abuse that continues to cripple the nation. Prescription drugs is the beginning of the cycle we tend to see that leads to heroin use, said Detective Brian Durling … Continue reading →

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Merck & Co., the world's third-biggest drugmaker by revenue, will tout a big surge in the company's pipeline of experimental drugs and a couple of promising new partnerships when it reports first-quarter results before the stock market opens Wednesday. WHAT TO WATCH FOR: CEO Kenneth Frazier will note the company has five new medicines under review by regulators, another just submitted and four others slated to be submitted for review sometime this year. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration this month gave Merck's experimental cancer drug lambrolizumab a "breakthrough therapy" designation. That's meant to hasten final testing and the review process. The drugs currently under regulatory review include insomnia pill suvorexant, ovarian cancer drug vintafolide and sugammadex for reversing effects of anesthesia after surgery. The others are a grass-allergy immunotherapy that gradually reduces allergic reactions and a cholesterol pill combining a generic version of Pfizer Inc.'s former blockbuster Lipitor the top-selling drug in history with Zetia, a Merck pill that controls cholesterol in a different way. Just Monday, Merck and longtime rival Pfizer announced a partnership for further testing and development of Pfizer's experimental Type 2 diabetes pill ertugliflozin. It's about to enter late-stage patient … Continue reading →

By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gilead Sciences Inc said on Monday that U.S. health rejected two of its HIV drugs as standalone therapies, citing deficiencies in documentation and validation of certain quality testing procedures. Gilead said it is working with U.S. Food and Drug Administration to address the questions raised in the rejection letter in order to prove the application forward. The company is seeking approval for its drug elvitegravir for people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, who have already been treated with other products. The drug blocks the enzyme integrase which is needed for the HIV virus to replicate. Gilead is also seeking approval of cobicistat, a drug that does not itself fight the virus but boosts the function of other HIV medicines. Both drugs are already contained in Gilead's once-daily single-tablet HIV treatment Stribild, which combines four different medications and was approved in the United States last August. Analysts on average expect elvitegravir, if eventually approved, to generate annual sales of about $300 million by 2016 according to Thomson Reuters data. They expect sales of cobicistat of roughly $242 million over the same period. Overall, Gilead's portfolio of antiviral drugs generated sales in 2012 of … Continue reading →

Doctors argue that some drug companies are charging too much for their cancer drugs, to the detriment of patients. A group of more than 100 cancer experts have called out drug companies for the high prices of cancer drugs. The doctors, all specialists in chronic myelogenous leukemia or CML, published their opinion on what they call astronomical prices on Friday in the scientific journal Blood. They write: [We] believe the current prices of CML drugs are too high, unsustainable, may compromise access of needy patients to highly effective therapy, and are harmful to the sustainability of our national healthcare systems. These reflect the spiraling prices of cancer drugs in general. Of the 12 drugs approved by the FDA for various cancer indications in 2012, 11 were priced above $100,000 per year. Cancer drug prices have almost doubled from a decade ago, from an average of $5,000 per month to more than $10,000 per month. The authors do acknowledge the need for pharmaceutical companies to be rewarded for innovation and discoveries and that the cost of bringing a new cancer drug to market is around $1 billion. But the authors also suggest that current pricing, at least of some drugs, is … Continue reading →

By Barbara Bronson Gray HealthDay Reporter MONDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- People with severe or frequent migraines often turn to drugs to prevent them. But do the medications work? A new review of preventive treatments shows there is not much difference in the effectiveness of commonly prescribed drugs -- they work for some people, in some cases. But there is wide variation in the amount and severity of side effects associated with the drugs. The researchers found that drugs worked better than inactive placebos in reducing monthly migraine attacks. They prevented half or more migraines in 200 to 400 people per 1,000 treated. But many of the medications had side effects so bothersome that sufferers frequently stopped taking them. That could be because none of the drugs used to prevent migraines was designed specifically for that purpose, explained Dr. Jason Rosenberg, director of the Johns Hopkins Headache Center. "So, it's not surprising that they don't work all that well. Only one-third get halfway better, according to the study, so a doctor has to treat three people to get one patient better." Rosenberg, who was not involved with the study, suffers from migraines and thinks many primary care doctors may … Continue reading →