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| Drug maker Dendreon seeking a buyer: report Friday, Oct 25, 2013 05:02 PM PDT (Reuters) - Drug maker Dendreon Corp is looking for a suitor after sales for its lead product, prostate cancer drug Provenge, were weaker than expected, according to a Bloomberg report. The Seattle-based company is working with JPMorgan Chase & Co to help it find a buyer, Bloomberg said, citing people familiar with the matter. Dendreon's troubles began in 2011 after the company withdrew its sales forecast for the drug. Questions have also emerged about the veracity of the clinical trials that led to Provenge's approval. ... Full Story | Top |
| Man charged with extortion over threats to Midwest water supply Friday, Oct 25, 2013 03:42 PM PDT By Kevin Murphy KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A Missouri man was charged on Friday with trying to extort $10,000 from the FBI by saying that he could help authorities investigate a threat to contaminate the public water supply of four Midwest cities. Manuel Garcia, 69, of Kansas City, called police and federal agents to report that he knew of two men who intended to pour 55-gallon drums of unspecified contaminants into water systems in Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri, and Wichita and Topeka, Kansas, according to statement from the U.S. attorney's office in Kansas City. ... Full Story | Top |
| Obama's tech expert becomes target over healthcare website woes Friday, Oct 25, 2013 03:24 PM PDT By Roberta Rampton and Sarah McBride (Reuters) - Todd Park has gone from steering his healthcare information technology company through a blockbuster IPO to occasionally sleeping on a mat in his office while working to repair the troubled new U.S. government healthcare website. Park, the chief technology officer for the White House and a top advisor to President Barack Obama, now finds himself among a handful of officials with targets on their backs as Republicans try to root out who is responsible for this month's glitch-ridden rollout of Healthcare.gov. ... Full Story | Top |
| White House says 'Obamacare' website will be fixed by end of November Friday, Oct 25, 2013 02:40 PM PDT  By Caroline Humer and Sharon Begley (Reuters) - The website for Americans to buy insurance under President Barack Obama's healthcare law should be working smoothly for most users by the end of November, a White House official assigned to fix Healthcare.gov said on Friday. Jeffrey Zients also told reporters in a conference call that Quality Software Services Inc, or QSSI, will now serve as a general contractor to oversee repairs to the glitch-ridden website. The administration has not had a technology company overseeing the entire project. ... Full Story | Top |
| Patients might benefit from health literacy tests Friday, Oct 25, 2013 02:16 PM PDT By Shereen Jegtvig NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Doctors often assume they're explaining things in a way patients understand. When patients are confused, doctors don't always realize it. A new study shows patients might benefit from having their "health literacy" tested. Researchers at a large Arizona healthcare center looked at how a short health literacy test would affect the way patients felt about their treatment. They found it did no harm and may have helped to improve patient satisfaction. ... Full Story | Top |
| Talk therapy may ease health-related anxiety: study Friday, Oct 25, 2013 02:15 PM PDT By C. E. Huggins NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Talk therapy performed by nurses and other clinic staff may help people with health anxiety stop worrying about being sick when they're not, a new study suggests. The goal of so-called cognitive behavior therapy, or CBT, is to help people understand how their thoughts and attitudes affect how they feel and how they respond to situations. It then addresses practical steps people can take to improve negative thoughts and outcomes. ... Full Story | Top |
| FDA panel backs Gilead hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir Friday, Oct 25, 2013 01:38 PM PDT By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal advisory panel recommended on Friday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approve Gilead Sciences Inc's experimental hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir, paving the way for a treatment that is more effective than current therapies and takes less time. The FDA advisory panel voted 15 to 0 in favor of approval of the drug in patients with two variants of the liver-damaging disease - genotype 2 and genotype 3 - in combination with an existing treatment, ribavirin. ... Full Story | Top |
| Augusto Odone, maker of "Lorenzo's Oil," dies Friday, Oct 25, 2013 01:31 PM PDT ROME (Reuters) - Augusto Odone, whose invention of "Lorenzo's Oil" to prolong the life of his son was made into an Oscar-nominated film, has died at the age of 80 in Italy, his family said on Friday. He died on Thursday in the northern Piedmont region where he was born in 1933 and from where he left for America as a young man. A former World Bank economist, Odone and his wife Michaela refused to accept the medical prognosis that their six-year-old son Lorenzo had only a few years to live after being diagnosed with Adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD, which destroys the brain cells of children. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. proposes rules to boost animal feed, pet food safety Friday, Oct 25, 2013 12:45 PM PDT  By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday it is issuing a proposed rule aimed at improving the safety of food bound for farm animals and pets. The rule would require companies that make animal feed and pet food sold in the United States to identify potential hazards and put in place procedures to prevent and correct them. ... Full Story | Top |
| AbbVie beats forecast as Humira sales surge Friday, Oct 25, 2013 11:23 AM PDT By Ransdell Pierson (Reuters) - AbbVie Inc on Friday reported stronger-than-expected results for the third quarter, as booming sales of its Humira arthritis treatment and Synthroid thyroid replacement drug more than offset lower demand for other medicines. Shares of the drugmaker, which was split off at the beginning of the year from Abbott Laboratories Inc , rose 2.4 percent. Humira, a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, Crohn's disease and other conditions, is the world's top-selling prescription drug. Sales have risen steadily since it was introduced in 2002. ... Full Story | Top |
| Zogenix's long-acting painkiller gets FDA approval Friday, Oct 25, 2013 11:10 AM PDT (Reuters) - Zogenix Inc said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its drug for treating pain severe enough to require around-the-clock, long-term treatment, sending the specialty pharmaceutical company's shares up as much as 54 percent. The drug is approved for use in patients for whom alternate treatment has proved inadequate or ineffective. The FDA requires post-marketing studies for the drug, Zohydro ER, to assess the known risks of misuse, abuse, increased sensitivity to pain, addiction, overdose and death associated with long-term use beyond 12 weeks. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. bishop may have exposed Catholics to hepatitis during Communion Friday, Oct 25, 2013 11:00 AM PDT By Kevin Murphy (Reuters) - Catholics in North Dakota were warned to watch for symptoms of hepatitis A after a bishop with the disease served Communion at four churches, putting worshipers at risk, state officials said. Bishop John Folda of the Catholic Diocese of Fargo got hepatitis from contaminated food while in Italy last month for a conference of newly ordained bishops, Aliceyn Magelky, spokeswoman for the diocese, said on Friday. ... Full Story | Top |
| Drug use high among commercial truck drivers: study Friday, Oct 25, 2013 10:17 AM PDT By Kathryn Doyle NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Truck drivers have challenging jobs and too often they put their own health and safety, as well as others', in danger by taking stimulants and other drugs to get through a shift, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed evidence from around the world to get a sense of how much is known about how frequently truck drivers use legal and illegal "psychoactive" substances like alcohol, marijuana, amphetamines and cocaine. ... Full Story | Top |
| DNA tests show Bulgarian couple are parents of girl found in Greece Friday, Oct 25, 2013 10:10 AM PDT By Tsvetelia Tsolova and Angel Krasimirov SOFIA (Reuters) - A Bulgarian Roma couple are the biological parents of a four-year-old blonde girl found in Greece last week, DNA tests showed on Friday, clearing some of the mystery around a case that has captured global attention. Bulgarian prosecutors are investigating whether the mother, Sasha Ruseva, 35, sold her child. Ruseva denies this, but admits leaving a seven-month-old baby in Greece - where she was working as an olive-picker - in 2009 because she could not look after the child and had to return to Bulgaria. ... Full Story | Top |
| FDA approves Abbott device for leaking heart valve Friday, Oct 25, 2013 09:35 AM PDT By Bill Berkrot (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Abbott Laboratories' MitraClip medical device, used to stop heart valve leakage in patients deemed unable to endure valve repair through open heart surgery, the company said on Friday. The MitraClip treats mitral regurgitation, a condition in which the mitral valve of the heart does not close properly, causing blood leakage that can lead to stroke, heart attack or even death. It has estimated the disorder affects about one in 10 people aged 75 and older. ... Full Story | Top |
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