Tocilizumab, marketed as Actemra, will be given to hundreds of critically ill coronavirus patients in the NHS Hundreds of critically ill coronavirus patients in the NHS will be given an arthritis drug as part of the world’s largest trial of promising therapies. Tocilizumab, sold as RoActemra or Actemra, will be administered to patients whose lungs … Read more
Cannabis really is a gateway drug that leads users on to harder illegal substances like cocaine by making users more sensitive to its effects Smoking cannabis boosts brains’ sensitivity to cocaine, US researchers report Young rats exposed to cannabis had ‘enhanced reaction’ to cocaine exposure In young humans cannabis abuse can enhance experiences with a … 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
A breakthrough anti-viral drug found to help critically-ill patients recover from coronavirus within a week is not part of a drug trial run by the University of Oxford to find a treatment, it has emerged. The drug remdesivir, manufactured by pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences, has been undergoing trials in the US and smaller trials in the UK run … 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
Hydroxychloroquine What are the brand versions of the drug? Plaquenil. What does it treat? Malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. It is a less powerful and, by some experts’ accounts, less toxic, version of chloroquine phosphate. Hydroxychloroquine, sold under the brand name Plaquenil, may treat COVID-19 Who makes it and where has it already been tested? … Read more
More than 5,000 people in Britain have volunteered to take part in a pioneering drug trial in search of a treatment for the currently incurable COVID-19. The Recovery Trial, conducted by Oxford University, recruited the participants — all of whom are COVID-19 patients already in hospital — at more than 160 NHS hospitals. Participants will … Read more
The antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine did not speed up coronavirus patients’ recovery in a trial in China, scientists have revealed. In a disappointing blow for the promising drug, which is being trialled against COVID-19 in the UK and around the world, doctors said it did not work as a cure. Patients who were taking it suffered … Read more
The first results from an international experimental US antiviral drug are promising, even as a trial of the same drug in China shuts down. More than half of a group of severely ill coronavirus patients from the US, Canada, Europe and Japan improved after taking remdesivir made by California-based Gilead Sciences. Originally developed as a … Read more