The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may announce its decision allowing emergency use authorization of an antiviral drug to treat coronavirus patients as early as Wednesday. It comes after studies showed that remdesivir, made by California-based Gilead Sciences, helped patients go from relying on oxygen to leaving hospital in two weeks, reported The New … Read more
Bemcentinib, an experimental Norwegian cancer drug has become the first to be fast-tracked into UK Government-funded coronavirus trials An experimental Norwegian cancer drug has become the first of six promising coronavirus treatments to be fast-tracked into human coronavirus trials in the UK. The medication, called bemcentinib, could be tested on 120 hospitalised COVID-19 sufferers at … Read more
A trial of the antiviral drug remdesivir has produced ‘positive data’ for treating coronavirus patients, its maker, Gilead Sciences, said Wednesday. Gilead announced the results of a clinical trial testing the drug, which was originally developed to treat Ebola patients, in people severely ill with coronavirus. Half of the 397 patients, who were sick enough … Read more
An antiviral drug that could be taken as a nasal spray can block the coronavirus from latching onto lung cells, according to laboratory trials. The medicine, marketed as Neumifil, was developed as a treatment for flu but may be able to prevent COVID-19, scientists say. A study by the University of St Andrews in Scotland … Read more
A clinical trial is being launched to test an asthma drug’s effectiveness in treating deadly conditions caused by the novel coronavirus. The drug, called ibudilast – which has been approved to treat asthma in Japan and South Korea – has shown promise in improving lung health in mouse models. The team, from Yale University’s New Haven … Read more
The feeling is ‘as if your head is shut in a vice, with hundreds of worms crawling around inside your skull’, says migraine sufferer Donna Cox, describing her attacks. ‘It’s like your whole brain is on the move and all the time there is this utterly unbearable pain,’ adds the 57-year-old, who lives in Grimsby, … Read more
Hospitals in New York have been quietly testing a heartburn drug as a treatment for coronavirus after doctors in China found that elderly survivors were taking it. Northwell Health had tested famotidine (sold in oral form under brand name Pepcid) on 187 critically ill patients out of an intended 1,174 as of Saturday as part … Read more
Cancer warning for popular diet drug Belviq after overweight patients in trial to test its safety for those at risk for heart disease developed tumors Belviq was approved in 2012 and it works by reducing patients’ appetites The FDA asked manufacturer Eisai Inc to conduct a clinical trial to determine the potential risk of heart-related problems … Read more
The US drug epidemic has likely claimed the lives of twice as many Americans as currently estimated, new research suggests. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that there were 63,000 drug overdose deaths in 2016. But that estimate doesn’t include non-overdose deaths that have drugs at their root, like those from HIV, … Read more
‘Hippy crack’ is less damaging than alcohol and should never have been banned, the Government’s former drug tsar has said. Nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, gives users a feeling of euphoria. It was outlawed by officials three years ago. Professor David Nutt said nos, as it is sometimes known, was a ‘great British discovery’ … Read more