Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc’s experimental drug to treat the skin disorder psoriasis carries a potential risk of suicide. However, the risk is challenging to assess due to limited data, according to a preliminary review by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), recently published. Reported on www.reuters.com, in clinical trials of the drug, brodalumab, there [...]
Politicians and health experts today come together to call on the government to tackle the causes of poor health and make health improvement an objective across all policy areas – including education, leisure, housing and employment. The essays conclude that addressing the wider determinants of health is critical to ensuring the prosperity and wellbeing of [...]
Scientists at King’s College London have developed a blood test that accurately and reliably predicts whether depressed patients will respond to common antidepressants, which could herald a new era of personalised treatment for people with depression. Guided by this test, patients with blood inflammation above a certain threshold could be directed towards earlier access to [...]
PSNC has published a summary of the counter proposal it has made to the Department of Health in response to the government’s proposals for community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond. The counter proposal sets out how community pharmacy services, including an emergency supply of medicines service, could be used to generate the savings the NHS [...]
PSNC has urged David Cameron to reconsider his plans for community pharmacy after the Prime Minister told MPs that he wanted to see value for money from the sector following massive increases in spending. The Prime Minister’s comments followed a question from Sue Hayman, Labour MP for Workington, who asked whether the government would support [...]
Older adults might want to avoid a using class of drugs commonly used in over-the-counter products such as nighttime cold medicines due to their links to cognitive impairment, a research team led by scientists at the Indiana University School of Medicine has recommended. Using brain imaging techniques, the researchers found lower metabolism and reduced brain sizes among [...]
NHS England have announced a £112 million investment in new roles for pharmacists in general practice as part of a wider initiative to improve primary care for patients, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) reports. They have committed to enable every practice in England to access a pharmacist across a minimum population on average of 30,000 – leading [...]
Hot on the heels of NHS England’s announcement of plans to improve patient care and access and invest in new ways of providing primary care, reactions from the GP community have been out in force. Its five-year vision contains specific steps to strengthen workforce, drive efficiencies in workload, modernise infrastructure and technology, and redesign the [...]
Research co-led by the University of Glasgow has made a potential breakthrough in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The study, led by scientists at the University of Glasgow and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), has discovered that a protein called IL-33 can reverse Alzheimer’s disease-like pathology and cognitive decline in mice. [...]
Despite a shortage in corneas for transplant purposes, new research has revealed that eyes are the one body part we are least likely to donate. While more than a quarter of British adults (26 per cent) interviewed by www.optegra.com have registered for organ donation, almost two thirds (64 per cent) state they would not donate [...]
