Reuters Health News Summary

08/31/2016 16:55

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Theranos voluntarily pulls request for fast clearance of Zika test

Blood-testing firm Theranos Inc said it voluntarily withdrew a request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency clearance of its Zika-virus blood test. Theranos made the decision after the FDA said the company did not include proper patient safeguards in a study, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Online tools help people improve their health but need more study

Mobile apps and web-based programs do help people reach health goals like exercising more, losing weight and quitting smoking, but studies need to follow-up longer to see how sustainable these interventions are, according to a recent review of existing research. Lifestyle choices like poor diet and smoking are a major cause of death and disease worldwide, the researchers write in the Journal of the American Heart Association, and digital tools may be a low-cost and more accessible option for people looking to improve their health.

Swedish hospital behind Nobel prize criticized over medical scandal

The reputation of the Karolinska Institute, one of Sweden's top hospitals that awards the Nobel prize for medicine, has been badly damaged by allegations patients died as a result of a surgeon performing experimental operations without clearance, an official report said. Criticism of the Karolinska Institute, which had employed Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, led to the resignation of the secretary of the Nobel Committee at the Institute in February and to calls for the award to be scrapped this year and next.

Few people of color in 'artificial pancreas' tests

For years, doctors and patients have been waiting for the arrival of an "artificial pancreas" to take the guesswork out of life with diabetes by measuring blood sugar levels and automatically delivering the amount of insulin needed to keep the disease in check. But now that this experimental device is close to becoming reality, a new study suggests that tests to date have largely ignored a big segment of the patient population that might use it - people of color.

Singapore raises Zika tally; first pregnant woman diagnosed

A pregnant woman was among those diagnosed with Zika infections in Singapore, as the number of confirmed cases of the mosquito-borne virus in the city-state rose to 115. The Zika virus, which has spread through the Americas and the Caribbean since late last year, is generally a mild disease but is a particular risk to pregnant women as it can cause microcephaly - a severe birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains.

Novartis bid to sell new biosimilar crimped by U.S. court battles

Novartis has won U.S. approval for a copy of Amgen's blockbuster arthritis drug Enbrel, but the Swiss drugmaker's bid to muscle in on the medicine's $4.7 billion in annual U.S. revenue remains blocked by court battles. Novartis's Sandoz unit said on Tuesday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Erelzi, its biosimilar copy of Enbrel, for rheumatoid arthritis, plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and other diseases.

'Not out of the woods yet' in yellow fever outbreak in Angola, Congo: WHO

Some 6,000 people in Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo may be infected with yellow fever, six times the number of confirmed cases, but no new infections have been found since July 12, an "extremely positive" trend, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. The looming rainy season has raised fears of further spread of the worst outbreak in decades of the mosquito-borne haemorrhagic virus among unprotected African populations.

U.S. FDA strengthens warning over opioid/sedative combination

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday strengthened warnings about the danger of combining opioid painkillers or cough medicines containing opioids with benzodiazepines, a common class of sedatives. The agency is requiring that black box warnings, the strongest available, be added to nearly 400 products, alerting doctors and patients that combining opioids and benzodiazepines can cause extreme sleepiness, slowed breathing, coma and death.

Novartis to disband cell & gene therapy unit, 120 jobs to go

Novartis is folding activities of its Cell and Gene Therapy unit into other business and research locations, eliminating 120 positions, the Swiss drugmaker said on Wednesday. The move intensifies a corporate makeover begun this year as it focuses on high-growth areas including cancer immunotherapy.

What do patients know about generic biotech drugs?

Many patients haven't heard of "biosimilars," generic versions of complex biotech drugs, and even some who say they're familiar with these medicines may still be confused about them, a small European survey suggests. Biotech drugs known as biologics are injected medicines, typically containing proteins like antibodies made from living cells, and often carry price tags north of $100,000 a year. Copies of these biotech drugs are called biosimilars because they can have the same ingredients and recipe without being exact copies of the original brand-name therapy.

08/31/2016 16:55