November 30, 2007

• Sitaxsentan Active Against Pulmonary Artery Hypertension
  (Medscape) -- Sitaxsentan, a selective antagonist of the endothelin A receptor, reduces pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) associated with connective tissue disease, researchers report in the November issue of the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

•   Organ Donor Reality Falling Short Of Hopes
  (The Australian) -- How is it that the overall number of donors per million Australians is lower now than it was 20 years ago -- while other countries, such as Spain and the US, have doubled numbers?

• Oxygen Suppliers Fight To Keep A Medicare Boon
  (New York Times) -- Medicare spends billions of dollars each year on products and services that are available at far lower prices.

• Diet-Pill Dilemma
  (Time) -- The good news is that according to a recent report in the British Medical Journal, three relatively new antiobesity drugs helped patients lose a moderate amount of weight while doing such things as lowering cholesterol and reducing the incidence of diabetes. The bad news is that the list of possible side effects doesn't end there.

• Anticoagulation Therapy, Pulmonary Hypertension, and Connective Tissue Disease
  (Medscape) -- What is your opinion about the use of anticoagulation therapy in all patients with pulmonary hypertension and connective tissue disease?

• Support Grows For Adding PDE-5 Inhibitors To Standard Heart-Failure Meds
  (TheHeart.Org) -- In their 12-week follow-up of 34 patients with pulmonary hypertension secondary to the HF who were randomized to the active drug or placebo, Dr. Gregory D Lewis (Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston) and colleagues saw those taking the PDE-5 inhibitor also perform significantly better on the six-minute-walk test and score higher on quality-of-life measures than they had at baseline.

• Vietnamese Doctors Use Viagra To Treat Lung Disease In Newborns
  (Thanh Nien Daily) -- Doctors at Children's Hospital 1 in Ho Chi Minh City have used Viagra to treat pulmonary hypertension in newborns for the first time in Vietnam, a doctor said.

• FDA Mulls Cutting Salt In Processed Foods
  (HealthDay News) -- In fact, 150,000 American lives could be saved each year if the salt in processed foods and restaurant meals were cut in half, the American Medical Association has said.

• Donor Alcohol Use May Cause Lung Transplant Rejections
  (Associated Content) -- Regular consumption of alcohol can cause airway injury and scarring after a lung transplant, creating questions about the screening of lung donors.

•   Ikaria's INOmax Approved In Australia
  (News-Medical.Net) -- NOmax, in conjunction with ventilatory support and other appropriate agents, is used for the treatment of term and near-term (>34 weeks) neonates with hypoxic respiratory failure associated with clinical or echocardiographic evidence of pulmonary hypertension.

• Existing Drugs Show Promise For Treating End-stage Renal Disease In Lupus
  (Science Daily) -- Studies in mice suggest that two drugs already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration show promise for treating the complications of lupus, according to Nilamadham Mishra, M.D., in presentations this week at the American College of Rheumatology in Boston.

• Portopulmonary Hypertension: Bosentan Could Give A Survival Advantage
  (Medical News Today) -- In a retrospective analysis, Marius Hoeper (Hannover Medical School, Germany) and his colleagues compare the effects of treatment with inhaled iloprost, a prostacyclin derivative, and oral bosentan, an endothelin receptor antagonist, in patients with portopulmonary hypertension.
  

• Lungs' Pressure Needn't Threaten Heart Transplant Survival
  (Science Daily) -- Of the more than 2,000 heart transplants performed each year in the United States, up to 20 percent of the patients die or reject their organ within a year due to right heart failure brought on by pulmonary hypertension, infection or immune response.
  

• Malaysia's First Double Organ Transplant Patient Dies
  (Times of India) -- Eighteen-year-old Siti Salmah Jasni, who had suffered from pulmonary hypertension for the last five years, had received a donor heart and lungs of a woman who was killed in an accident, national news agency Bernama said.
  

• Immune System Reboot Could Treat Autoimmune Disease
  (Wired) -- With the help of an ingenious protein hack, scientists have used stem cells to grow new immune systems in mice -- a technique that could someday treat human autoimmune diseases.
  

• Encysive Pharmaceuticals Launches Thelin In Italy
  (Encysive) -- Encysive Pharmaceuticals Inc. today announced the commercial availability of THELIN(r) (sitaxentan sodium) 100 mg tablets in Italy for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension.
  

• Hermitage Parents Plan Trip To Thailand For Stem-Cell Procedure To Help Daughter
  (Youngstown Vindicator) -- To have the procedure done, Marcia and Joseph Hirschmann must travel to Bangkok where their daughter will have a pint of blood drawn. That blood will be sent to laboratories in Israel where her own stem cells will be multiplied into several million over about a week's time. Doctors in Bangkok will then inject those adult stem cells into her heart, a procedure expected to make her heart stronger.
  

• New Way To Detect Lupus-Associated Kidney Disease
  (Science Daily) -- High urinary levels of certain molecules might have the potential to serve as biomarkers for a potentially life-shortening kidney ailment caused by the autoimmune disease lupus, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found.
  

• PH Victim: 'I Thought I'd Be Dead Within Two Years'
  (The Province) -- Up to 55 per cent of PH patients -- a majority of whom are women -- do die within two years, so to be still ticking more than nine years on is good.
  

• Fen-Phen Case Put On Hold
  (Cincinnati Enquirer) -- Allegations of misconduct in the U.S. Attorney's Office could derail the prosecution of three lawyers accused of conspiring to defraud their clients out of millions of dollars in the diet pill fen-phen settlement, a federal judge said Tuesday.
  

• Arena Son Of Fen-Phen Shows Promise That Eluded Wyeth
  (Bloomberg) -- Arena, the fledgling biotechnology company, says it may sell a weight-loss drug by 2010 that blocks appetite signals in the brain using the same method as fen-phen, without the side effects.
  

• Breathing Training And Exercises Help With PH
  (Earthtimes) -- Controlled exercise and special breathing exercises can help patients suffering from pulmonary hypertension.
  

• UW-Madison Researcher Helping To Save Transplanted Lungs
  (Wisconsin State Journal) -- Burlingham's specialty is trying to understand why transplant patients reject their new organs. In May 2000, he was just beginning what would become a successful but controversial seven-year study of lung transplants and a mysterious condition that causes many transplanted lungs to fail.
  

• Risk Assessment
  (Newsweek) -- What happens when the gift of life comes with complications? Recent cases of HIV transmission via organ transplants have doctors rethinking what they should tell patients about their donors.
  

• Genelabs Regains Development Rights In Japan For Lupus Drug
  (Reuters) -- Genelabs Technologies Inc said it regained full development and licensing rights in Japan for its investigational lupus drug, Prestara, under the terms of a termination deal with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp.
  

• Encouragement For Those Living With Primary Pulmonary Hypertension
  (American Chronicle) -- November is Pulmonary Hypertension Awareness month. This year marks the ten-year anniversary of a national initiative to create awareness for what once was an obscure and terminal illness. Today millions of dollars are committed to the search for a cure!
  

• Early Diagnosis Gives PAH Patients A Fighting Chance
  (CNW Group) -- The answer is Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension, also known as PAH; the question - which progressive, degenerative disease has a faster mortality timeline than some cancers? Yet, even though untreated PAH will claim the lives of between 40 to 55 per cent of patients within the first two years after diagnosis, patients continue to be diagnosed late.
  

• Fat Pills Give Modest Weight Loss
  (BBC) -- Patients taking anti-obesity drugs lose only "modest" amounts of weight, and many remain significantly obese or overweight, research reveals.
  

• EU Panel Backs Seven Orphan Drugs At Monthly Meeting
  (EasyBourse.com) -- 4,6-diamino-2-[1-(2-fluorobenzyl)-1H-pyrazolo[3,4-b]pyridine-3-yl]-5-pyr imidinyl(methyl)carbamate, from Bayer HealthCare AG, for treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension including treatment of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension. EMEA review began on 10 September 2007 with an active review time of 60 days.
  

• Targeted Lupus Treatment On The Horizon
  (BioPharmaReporter.com) -- Researchers have uncovered some of the underlying causes of lupus, and have even suggested certain targeted therapies to tackle the autoimmune disease.
  

• New Method Allows For Early Diagnosis Of Pulmonary Hypertension
  (Huliq) -- Until now, the only method to identify pulmonary hypertension was to perform a cardiac catheterization, an invasive technique consisting of the insertion of a hollow and flexible tube (a catheter) through the jugular vein directly into the right side of the heart. This technique is not advisable for all patients because of its complexity and risk.
  

• New Insights Into The Pathobiology Of Pulmonary Hypertension In COPD
  (Medscape) -- Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is an important complication of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) due to its high prevalence and its association with reduced survival. New insights into the pathobiology of PH in COPD reveal that endothelial dysfunction with impairment of synthesis and release of endothelium-derived mediators play a fundamental role in its pathogenesis.
  

• Four Patients Get HIV From Organ Donor
  (Yahoo) -- A troubling case in which a high-risk organ donor infected four patients with the AIDS virus and hepatitis has led medical ethicists to warn that patients need to know more about whose organs they're getting.
  

• Mayo Clinic Shows Therapy Effective For Reducing Lupus Flares
  (EurekAlert) -- Mayo Clinic researchers have shown that an immunosuppressive drug used in organ transplant cases is effective in reducing flare-ups in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). SLE results in inflammation of connective tissues and can involve the skin, joints and kidneys. Its cause is unknown. The findings were announced today at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Boston.
  

• Regulating Gene Prevents Autoimmune
  (ScienceAlert) -- The discovery of how a particular gene in the human body suppresses autoimmune diseases like Type 1 diabetes and lupus could open the way for a completely new approach to treating such conditions, scientists propose.
  

• 49 File Another Fen-Phen Lawsuit
  (Lexington Herald-Leader) -- The 49 plaintiffs were originally part of a $200 million fen-phen settlement in Boone County in Kentucky, but Lexington attorneys Melbourne Mills, William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr. transferred the clients to Austin and firms in Mississippi and Alabama.
  

• Lungs' Pressure Needn't Threaten Heart Transplant Survival
  (EurekAlert) -- Heart surgeons at Johns Hopkins say people who need heart transplants can largely avoid transplant failure due to elevated blood pressure in their lungs with the help of proper drug treatment.
  

• Fish Oils Offer Lupus Treatment
  (The Times of India) -- Scientists have found that low dose dietary supplementation with omega-3 fish oils in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) - a chronic inflammatory disease that can affect the skin, joints, kidneys, lungs, nervous system, and other organs of the body - has a significant therapeutic effect on disease activity.
  

• Does The Method Of Lung Preservation Influence Outcome After Transplantation?
  (The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery) -- Objective: Despite 50 years of lung preservation research, the optimal preservation technique is undefined. Using data from a national cohort, we investigated outcomes with different preservation methods after adult lung transplantation.
  

• Encysive Pharmaceuticals Announces Presentation Of Sitaxsentan Data In Eisenmenger Syndrome At AHA Meeting
  (Encysive) -- Encysive Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that open label observational data from Columbia University suggests that sitaxsentan (THELIN), a selective endothelin A receptor antagonist, may improve symptoms associated with Eisenmenger syndrome.
  

• Sleep-related Breathing Disorder Linked To Increased Heart Rate Variability
  (Science Daily) -- A sleep-related breathing disorder, common in heart failure, increases one's heart rate variability. Further, central sleep apnea (CSA) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) produce different patterns of heart rate variability, which are likely to reflect the different pathophysiological mechanisms involved, according to a new study.
  

• WFU Researchers Discover New Hemoglobin Function
  (EurekAlert) -- Nitrite has been the object of intense study by researchers worldwide in pursuit of new treatments for such conditions as sickle cell disease, myocardial infarction, pulmonary hypertension, stroke and atherosclerosis.
  

• Anti-CD20 Drugs: Magic Bullet In Treating 'Enigmatic' Lupus?
  (BioWorld Online) -- The lupus space is heating up, and last week, Lazard Capital Markets published a 51-page report speculating that biotech and pharma might be on the verge of "slaying the wolf." Prestara wasn't mentioned, but plenty of other players made the grade, as the busy therapeutic area continues to evolve with new candidates.
  

• Plaintiffs Awarded Share Of Curlin’s Sale
  (New York Times) -- A state judge in Kentucky has given the more than 400 plaintiffs in a diet-drug lawsuit the right to 20 percent of the proceeds from the future sale of Curlin, the Preakness Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Classic champion.
  

• United Therapeutics Shares Soar On FDA Report
  (Washington Post) -- "These are amazing results," said Martine Rothblatt, the company's chief executive. "We are just absolutely elated." While 20 meters may not seem like a lot, Rothblatt, whose daughter suffers from the disease, said it is a huge difference to patients with the disease. "These patients cannot walk up one flight of steps," she said.
  

• Teen’s Organ Wait Ends
  (Malaysia Star) -- Siti Salmah is the first person in Malaysia to receive both lungs and heart simultaneously.
  

• Teen’s Organ Wait Ends
  (Malaysia Star) -- Siti Salmah is the first person in Malaysia to receive both lungs and heart simultaneously.
  

• Plaintiffs Can Claim Piece Of Curlin
  (LEX 18) -- A state judge has given more than 400 plaintiffs in a lawsuit the right to claim a piece of Breeder's Cup Classic champion Curlin, along with his winnings.
  

• Triumph-1 Trial Of Viveta In PAH Meets Primary Endpoint
  (United Therapeutics) -- United Therapeutics Corporation and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Lung Rx, Inc., announced today the completion of their TRIUMPH-1 Phase 3 trial of Viveta, an inhaled formulation of treprostinil, in pulmonary arterial hypertension. Preliminary analysis demonstrates that the trial has robustly met its primary endpoint.
  

• Lawyers' Victims Eye Horse
  (Cincinnati Enquirer) -- Carter's lawyer has asked a judge in Boone Circuit Court to seize Cunningham's and Gallion's 20 percent stake in Curlin in a continuing effort to collect a $42 million civil judgment against them and a former business partner and fellow lawyer, Melbourne Mills Jr.
  

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