Glenmark Pharmaceuticals is set to enter the final stage of clinical trials for its new drug, Revamilast, across several countries this year. It is meant for treatment of inflammatory disorders like asthma and rheumatoid arthritis. Glenmark may soon seek approval for Phase-III trials in the US, UK and India.

“Glenmark plans to file an IND (Investigational New Drug application) for Revamilast in the US in the third quarter of the current financial year. The company intends to initiate Phase-III trials for at least one indication by the end of FY13,” chairman and managing director Glenn Saldanha told Business Standard.

Ella Foundation has won a $100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations Grant, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

This Grant will help Ella Foundation pursue efforts to checkmate the polio virus during and after the eradication of polio. The aim is to have a live polio vaccine, which could carry the benefits of an oral polio vaccine.

One in every six cancers is caused by an infection that is preventable or treatable, according to a study conducted by researchers at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France. The study, published in The Lancet Oncology journal on Wednesday, looked at incidence rates for 27 cancers in 184 countries in 2008. While the research did not take India into account, doctors here said the figure is likely to be much higher than the global average of 16 per cent.

In a scrutiny of 39 randomly picked drugs in India, a parliamentary panel found that in case of 11 drugs (28%), mandatory phase-III clinical trials were not conducted. Is the pill you're popping safe? Well, one cannot be certain. Several highly popular medicines in India are being sold without having undergone clinical trials to check for their safety.

Researchers are close to finding a shot that protects against many strains of meningococcal B, the most prevalent cause of a rare but serious infection affecting brain and spinal cord membranes. The disease can become fatal or cause great harm if you are not treated right away. Symptoms are red spots, a rundown feeling, sudden high fever, severe headache, neck stiffness, nausea or vomiting, discomfort in bright lights, drowsiness or difficulty in awakening, joint pain, etc.

Chicago: It turns out you can recycle just about anything these days — even kidneys and other organs donated for transplants. Recently in Chicago, in what is believed to be the first documented case of its kind in the US, a transplanted kidney that was failing was removed from a patient while he was still alive and given to somebody else.
There have been other cases since the 1980s of transplant organs being used more than once, but they were rare and involved instances in which the first recipient died.

Doctors are waking up to the dangers of taking vitamin supplements in excess
What Overdosing On These Can Do
• Vitamin A Eczema, respiratory tract infection, blurred vision, ringing in the ears, insomnia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, hair loss, joint pain, menstrual irregularities, liver damage.
• Vitamin D Calcium deposition, deafness, nausea, loss of appetite, kidney stones, weak bones, hypertension, high cholesterol

New Delhi: India has developed a powerful new malaria drug — an alternative to the global drug of choice Artemisinin — that promises to be a major boost to India’s pharmaceutical research. The new drug’s raw materiel is synthetic (derived chemically in the lab) while Artemisinin is derived from a plant.
Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ranbaxy will unveil India’s first new chemical entity against the P falciparum malaria on Wednesday to commemorate World Malaria Day.