Eli Lilly will face a class-action suit over Zyprexa, now that a federal judge
has certified a group of insurance companies, pension funds, and unions that
want the drugmaker to repay them for the billions they spent on the
controversial antipsychotic drug. …
Until now, all the evidence for long-term maintenance of efficacy of Sativex has
come from long-term open-label exposurei. The results reported today confirm in
the context of a placebo-controlled double-blind study that efficacy is indeed
maintained in long-term use. …
The FDA has already warned patients and docs about some of the drugs on the
first list of 20 under scrutiny, such as TNF
blockers, in the news last week. …
Researchers found that, for uninsured patients, the percentage of medications
prescribed as generics rose from 12 percent to 30 percent after the clinic
closed its drug sample closet. For Medicaid patients, however, there was no
significant change in generic prescribing. …
…The antipsychotic action may be secondary to other consequences in the brain
that evolve over a period of several weeks. …
“Serotonin transporter binding potential values were significantly higher in all
investigated brain regions in individuals investigated in the fall and winter
compared with those investigated in the spring and summer,” the authors write. …
At least two of the cannabinoids don’t have mood-altering effects, so there
could be a way to use these substances without creating the high of marijuana. …
Because even the most benign of side effects has the potential of
becoming fatal in certain circumstances if left unaddressed, it is
imperative for patients, clinicians, pharmacists, and all health care
professionals to be aware of adverse reactions and possible complica
tions of clozapine therapy to prevent significant morbidity and
mortality. …
Clozapine is a substrate for many CYP450 isozymes, in particular 1A2, 2D6, and
3A4. The risk of metabolic interactions caused by an effect on an individual
isoform is therefore minimized. Nevertheless, caution should be used in patients
receiving concomitant treatment with other drugs that are either inhibitors or
inducers of these enzymes. …
It is well recognized that most medications exhibit wide interpatient
variability in their efficacy and toxicity. For many medications, these
interindividual differences are due in part to polymorphisms in genes encoding
drug metabolizing enzymes, drug transporters, and/or drug targets (e.g.,
receptors, enzymes). …