Cylene Pharmaceuticals has announced the initiation of a Phase II clinical trial of quarfloxin (CX-3543) in patients with carcinoid/neuroendocrine tumors (C/NET), which are malignant cancers arising from neural crest cells. Quarfloxin (CX-3543) is a small molecule that disrupts a protein:rDNA complex that forms in the abnormal nucleoli of cancer cells, thereby selectively inducing apoptotic cell death in cancers. In this open-label Phase II trial, quarfloxin will be administered to patients with low or intermediate grade C/NET, including those receiving concomitant treatment with a stable dose of octreotide.

Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that brain damage was reduced by as much as 62.2 percent in mice who inhale low amounts of carbon monoxide after an induced stroke. The scientists say that although carbon monoxide (CO) gas has a long reputation as an odorless, colorless cause of organ damage and even death, there is now evidence that it can protect nerve cells from damage. Some of the brain damage associated with stroke results directly from a cut-off in blood supply to nerve cells.

National Institutes of Health U.S. researchers have developed a hand-exercising robotic device that appears to help stroke victims recover motor skills, even more than six months after a stroke. Brain scans suggested that the device, which patients squeeze with their stroke-afflicted hands, boosted activity in the part of the brain that handles use of the hands. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States, trailing only heart disease and cancer, and a leading cause of severe long-term disability. An estimated 700,000 cases of stroke are diagnosed in the country annually.

ExonHit Therapeutics S.A. has announced the availability of its new SpliceArray™ for use in studying mouse models of human disease. These SpliceArrayTM products help our clients accelerate their therapeutic target discovery and validation efforts. Using our high resolution expression profiling analysis, we identify novel transcripts coding for new protein variants that may be involved in various genetic disorders such as oncology, central nervous system, or immune system disorders. This mouse SpliceArrayTM products represent the achievement of more two years of work by our R&D team after the launch of the Human genome SpliceArrayTM and the rat genome SpliceArrayTM.

AbsolutelyNew, Inc., has signed an exclusive licensing and manufacturing deal with inventors Dr. Stephen Landy of Memphis, TN and Brand Griffin of Huntsville, AL.  The Headache Reliever(TM) band invented by the company will be available in the market by early 2009. The product is clinically proven to reduce tension and migraine headache pain without drugs and their side-effects. It does this via a pressure band that gently compresses blood vessels, reusable and microwavable hot packs, freezer-friendly cold packs that cool and constrict blood vessels.

Genentech, Inc. has submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration  for its product Avastin® as a therapy for patients of glioblastoma who have received a treatment previously. If the supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) is accepted by the FDA, the drug can be considered for a provisional approval for treatment of cancer and other such deadly diseases. Glioblastoma is the most aggressive form of brain cancer. It has no cure. The study found that Avastin, when as evaluated as a single agent, showed that 43 percent of patients experienced no progression of disease.

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation has launched two new dosage strengths of its product Stalevo®, which is approved for use in treatment of Parkinson’s disease. With the approval of 75 and 125 tablets of Stalevo, physicians have another option to prescribe to patients who go through end-of-dose “wearing off”. The product simplifies treatment because it provides more sustained levodopa levels in the blood by combining it with the enzyme inhibitors carbidopa and entacapone.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given the approval to UCB’s Vimpat® (lacosamide) for use as an adjunct therapy in the treatment of partial-onset seizures in epilepsy patients older than 17 years of age. The novel anti-epileptic drug has an innovative mechanism of action which involves the modulation of activity of sodium channels in the nervous system. It prolongs the long-lasting resting condition of the channel, thereby controlling the hyperactive nerve cells.

Using positron emission tomography (PET) researchers associated with the journal ‘Biological Psychiatry’ have found out that a mechanism of brain inflammation is a major reason behind the development of schizophrenia. This has led them to suggest that anti-inflammatory agents hold a potential for use in the treatment of schizophrenia. They further maintain that medications under this category with powers to target, especially, the activation of microglia need to be studied.

A recent study has concluded that the use of statin drugs leads to reduction in the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by 67%. The multi-center trial assessed cognitive changes in the patients for four years. Widely used as drugs to lower cholesterol levels, statins are also safer drugs. Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation holds global patent rights for the use of statins for the treatment of AD.