Christina England American Chronicle 05/30/2010 Big Pharma’s only interest in society today is profit. Healthy people are of no use to them whatsoever, after all a healthy person does not need a cure. So bearing this in mind a few adverse reactions here and there do not worry the likes of Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck and Eli Lilly because where there is an adverse reaction there is the chance to prescribe another drug. I wonder just how many Americans are aware of the fact that [...]

John Gibb Otago Daily Times 05/05/2010 A powerful new vaccine therapy for colorectal cancer is likely to emerge from “highly promising” University of Otago research, which is moving closer to human clinical trials. This smart form of therapy uses harmless viral shells derived from rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus to deliver immunising tumour proteins. The same approach could also be applied to a wide range of human cancers, researchers say. This is one of several cutting-edge Otago research projects involving sciences, medical sciences and humanities which [...]

Todd Neale MedPage Today 05/30/2010 Of the two vaccines used in the U.K. to protect against pandemic H1N1 influenza, the adjuvanted split-virus vaccine offered better protection for children than the non-adjuvanted whole-virus vaccine, but caused more side effects, a phase II study showed. After two doses, there were higher seroconversion rates with the adjuvanted vaccine both in children younger than 3 (98.2% versus 80.1%, P

Donny Kwok Reuters 05/31/2010 Pfizer Inc, the world’s biggest drugmaker, is selling its swine vaccine business in China to Harbin Pharmaceutical Group for $50 million, a source with direct knowledge of the deal said on Monday. A spokeswoman from Pfizer’s Singapore office confirmed the divestment of its China swine vaccine business to Harbin Pharmaceutical but gave no details on the value of the deal or further comments. “Pfizer did indeed divest,” the spokeswoman said. Harbin Pharmaceutical officials were not immediately available for comment. The disposal [...]

Judith Tan The Straits Times 05/30/2010 TWO vaccines available here can protect women against a virus which causes cervical cancer, a disease which kills one woman here every five days. Yet, only three in 100 women have gone for it. One major obstacle: ignorance. Few women here know that the human papilloma virus (HPV) can give rise to cervical cancer, the sixth most common cancer among women here, with nearly one case diagnosed every day. Another obstacle: cost. The two vaccines, one produced by Merck [...]