Technology

 

A New class of drug could reduce cardiovascular risk

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A new class of drugs has the potential of reducing cardiovascular risk by targeting a specific microbial pathway in the gut.

Unlike antibiotics, which non-specifically kill gut bacteria and can lead to adverse side effects and resistance, the new class of compounds prevents microbes from making a harmful molecule linked to heart disease without killing the microbes, which are part of the gut flora and may be beneficial to overall health.

In the study in mice, the new drugs reversed two major risk factors for cardiovascular disease – increased platelet responsiveness and excessive clot formation – by lowering levels of TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide), a gut bacteria byproduct that forms during digestion.

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The firm Cipla South Africa grows national footprint with Mirren acquisition

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Cipla Medpro South Africa (Pty) Limited (“Cipla Medpro”), wholly owned subsidiary of Cipla Limited, India (“Cipla”), and South Africa’s fourth-largest pharmaceutical company in the private sector, has announced its plans to acquire a 100% stake in Mirren (Pty) Limited (“Mirren”).

Mirren is a South African over-the-counter (OTC) pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor, which has been in operation for 35 years. The transaction is subject to the approval by the Competition Commission of South Africa.

Paul Miller, CEO of Cipla South Africa, said that once approved, the transaction will enhance Cipla’s current OTC portfolio, by adding Mirren’s well-established brands such as Broncol cough syrup, Coryx, Tensopyn, and Ultimag. This deal will also increase Cipla’s local manufacturing footprint.

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What happens when disaster strikes

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There are a lot of scary threats in the world – extreme weather, terrorist attacks, deadly infectious diseases, mass shootings – but if healthcare organisations plan ahead for such disasters, lives can be saved.

The first step for health care organisations preparing for emergencies is to accurately assess the kinds of hazards they may face, such as flooding, power outages, or violence, emergency preparedness expert, Paul Biddinger said at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health as part of the Hot Topics summer lecture series.

In 2005, Biddinger and colleagues learned from consultants from Israel—who’d dealt with bombings that resulted in mass casualties—that the average time from when a bomb goes off until the first person reaches the closest emergency department is four minutes. Experts from other places that had dealt with bombings, including London, Madrid, and Mumbai, confirmed that events unfold incredibly quickly during a disaster.

Realising that
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A first for South Africa:- Biosimilar oncology drug authorised for use

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Cipla, South Africa’s third-largest pharmaceutical manufacturer, in collaboration with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, has announced the launch of the country’s first biosimilar for the oncology and haematology markets.

Filgrastim Teva, manufactured by Teva and distributed in South Africa by Cipla, paves the way for more affordable treatments to aid in the fight against dread diseases such as cancer, according to Paul Miller, CEO of Cipla South Africa.

“This landmark development for the South African pharmaceutical industry only happened after a thorough approval process. Not only does the approval of Filgrastim Teva hold major significance for the advancement of affordable supportive oncology treatments, but the learnings from this process will assist in faster approvals for more biosimilar medicines in future.”

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Hot Medical News:- Hi-tech lung cancer lab to benefit all

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If the country is to reduce its high cancer statistics, the public would have to be educated about the illness and preventative measures taken, says Gauteng Health MEC, Dr Gwen Ramokgopa.

Ramokgopa was speaking at the launch of the state-of-the-art Lung Laboratory at the Helen Joseph Hospital, in Johannesburg.
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3D printing disruption, medical implant sector ripe

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Medical technology which is often expensive at the time of market entry becomes cheaper over time. But 3D printing in medicine has started to revolutionise the field, especially with its rapidly declining costs and increased accessibility of the technology.

It is the technology that makes it more cost-effective. Although considerably costlier than existing implant solutions, the precision of end-product is what ensures the success of the 3D-printed medical devices. Because its designed from the thoroughly analysed digital model, 3D implants leave no room for error as compared to the traditional techniques which usually require additional processing adding waste and extraction costs.

With enhanced precision, 3D printed orthopedic and dental implants, including those that are difficult-to-treat have witnessed an impressive success rate in the past half of the decade. In line with this, a Fact.MR market study has estimated sales of medical implant segment to reach o
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Pharma’s role in the government’s National Health Insurance

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In its current form, the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) is by no means perfect and there remains a lot of uncertainty around funding, medical skills shortages, the role medical aids will play and how infrastructural problems, wastage and corruption in the public sector will be tackled.

“Healthcare reform challenges all of us that operate in the sector to keep and expand our place at the table. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that NHI is here to stay, which makes it imperative for pharmaceutical companies to get involved in the debate at the highest level in order to help shape a sustainable and effective healthcare system for South Africa,” says Erik Roos, CEO of Pharma Dynamics…
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A new Prostate treatment byproduct could accelerate cancer cell growth

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New research out of the United States points to a genetic anomaly in certain men with prostate cancer, which may impact their response to common drugs used to treat the disease.

Researchers found that abiraterone, a common prostate cancer drug, yields high levels of a testosterone-like byproduct in men with advanced disease who have a specific genetic variant.

The study’s lead researcher, Dr Nima Sharifi, who is based at Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, previously discovered that men with aggressive prostate cancer who have a specific variant in the HSD3B1 gene have poorer outcomes than patients without the variant. HSD3B1 encodes an enzyme that allows cancer cells to use adrenal androgens for fuel. This enzyme is overactive in patients with the variant HSD3B1(1245C).

Sharifi and his team in the Department of Cancer Biology, including first author, Dr Mohammad Alyamani, found that men with the genetic anomaly metabolise abiraterone differently
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Making vaccines ubiquitous is the key to cracking the cold chain challenge

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Over the years vaccines have prevented countless cases of disease and saved millions of lives. Infectious diseases like polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella (German measles), smallpox, mumps, tetanus and rotavirus used to be common around the world. Today vaccines can prevent them.

Despite this, one in five children in the world aren’t fully protected by even the most basic vaccines. In addition, almost 20 million are at risk of contracting preventable diseases because they are under-vaccinated. As a result about 1.5 million children die every year from diseases that can be prevented by vaccination coverage.

One of the main reasons is that there are many rural areas in the world that don’t have reliable power supplies. Vaccines need to be kept at particular temperatures, usually refrigerated, to remain effective. Cold chain conditions aren’t possible without power. A cold chain is a temperature-controlled supply chain that runs fr
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North West Health MEC working to recoup Mediosa money

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The North West Health MEC, Dr Magome Masike, says the department is working towards recouping taxpayers’ money lost to mobile clinic, Mediosa.

“First, the company sent us an invoice of R24m out of the R30m pre-payment. We need to satisfy ourselves that the [work for] R24m has been done by going through the report, which goes up to the end of January 2018.

“Then we still need a report for February 2018, which covers the work done for the outstanding R6m. Until we satisfy ourselves with the work that has been done, we are not settled with Mediosa,” said the MEC.

According to Masike, the company recently sent out tow trucks to collect the mobile health units stationed at Madibogo in the Ratlou sub-district and Kagisano Molopo respectively.

With plans underway to recoup the lost tax money, Masike raised concerns about the claims made by Mediosa about the number of patients serviced.

“My concern is the number of people that Mediosa is claiming to have
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Travelling abroad – Consider this advice before you leave

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I will never forget the first Canadian medical tourist I interviewed. I was gripped when this person told me about travelling abroad for invasive surgery, accompanied by their spouse. While in India, this spouse required emergency surgery to address a chronic condition that had worsened.

This situation sounded so distressing and the researcher in me wondered: Could the mental and physical stress of caregiving in an unfamiliar, international context have negatively impacted the spouse’s health to the point that surgery was required?

There are many reasons why patients opt to seek health care abroad. In some cases, it is because they cannot access timely surgery locally. In others, they are seeking an experimental procedure that is not available at home, such as an unapproved stem cell therapy.

For most of the last decade I have been involved in extensively studying medical tourism. I have spoken with patients, policy-makers, doctors, nurses, tourism official
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Technology – Egyptian e-health startup ElBalto launches mobile consultation service

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Egyptian startup ElBalto has launched a mobile application that provides users with easy, reliable, timely and affordable online video consultations via a network of customer-rated and licensed doctors.

Video consultations offered on ElBalto will initially be available in the specialisations of Psychiatry, Pediatrics, Nutrition and Gynecology, while the startup will also offer home visits in areas like Orthopedics and Cardiology.

“Currently, Egypt is suffering from a significant imbalance in the health workforce distribution, with doctors concentrated in the big cities and urban settings,” said co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Mahmoud Abdalla.

“I was personally inspired when I became a father and had to go with my wife and newborn every other week for a doctor’s appointment to get answers to very basic questions, or to follow up on treatment. We were both struggling with time, effort, cost and logistics, let alone the inconvenience if we wo
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Medical Schemes Act & NHI:- Motsoaledi outlines changes

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Two of the proposed amendments to the Medical Schemes Act will do away with co-payments, and abolish the practice of using brokers within the medical schemes environment.

Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, said co-payments mean that the scheme pays a portion of the bill that a provider – be it hospital or private doctor – charges to a patient. The rest of the funds are supposed to be paid by the patient from their own pocket.

“The amendment means that every cent charged to the patient must be settled fully by the scheme and the patient should not be burdened with having to pay. There are people who will scream that this amendment is outrageous and calculated to destroy medical schemes and leave beneficiaries with nothing. I want to assure you that this was well thought out,” he said.

According to data at the department’s disposal, medical schemes are holding close to R60bn in unused reserves. While there is a statutory requirement that me
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Green Tea extract:- SA voted among best in the world

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A highly potent South African green tea extract has been voted among the world’s top new products at one of Europe’s most prestigious natural health trade shows.

Produced in the foothills of the Drakensberg in Mpumalanga and developed by scientists and medical experts, polyphenol-rich Origine 8 was voted as one of the top three out of 330 new health products in the Judges Choice Awards at the Natural & Organic Products Europe trade show (NOPE) in London…
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Drug Users:- How to reverse overdoses

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Find out how drug users banded together to use a simple injection to save thousands of lives. Alexander Walley was a twentysomething medical student when he witnessed the power of naloxone. It was the midnight shift at the Emergency Department at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

The call wasn’t unusual: a middle-aged man had been found unconscious after overdosing on heroin. Walley accompanied a pair of paramedics to an ambulance, and they headed out into the cool moonlit night. After five blocks or so they arrived at one of the city’s housing projects and threaded their way across crumbling sidewalks to a shabby apartment in a dimly lit building. Inside, Walley found the man slumped against a wall, blue-skinned and not breathing. “He looked dead,” Walley says, recalling the incident 15 years later.

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