TopNews

Bristol-Myers Squibb's immunotherapy drug Opdivo has increased the kidney cancer survival rates by over 2 years in a late-stage trial, making the drug all set to be used beyond melanoma and lung cancer.

In July, the US Company said the study was stopped early because its drug was more effective as compared to Novartis' established product Afinitor. But the detailed findings of the study were revealed on Saturday at the European Cancer Congress in Vienna.

The successful outcome meant that Opdivo has become the first so-called immune checkpoint inhibitor drug that has shown an improvement in overall survival in patients having renal cell carcinoma (RCC), a common type of kidney cancer.

A teen girl has developed acute hepatitis because of drinking green tea in excess to lose weight. Doctors have used her case to demonstrate the dangers of consuming too much green tea.

The unnamed girl fell ill with a kidney infection after she followed a three-month diet that included three cups of hot green tea each day. She went to her GP, complaining about dizziness, nausea, stomach and joint pains, and her GP prescribed antibiotics for a urinary infection.

But the girl's symptoms got worse after two days and she went to the A&E unit of Birmingham University Hospital. There doctors told her that she was suffering from jaundice.

The University of Vigo in Spain conducted two studies that have suggested that taking medication for hypertension before bed, instead of after getting up in the morning, can notably decrease the chance of developing diabetes.

As per the CDC, over 1 in 3 people in the US have hypertension, or blood pressure that is higher than normal but can't be considered as high blood pressure. Besides diabetes, the condition can also cause heart attack, stroke, chronic heart failure and kidney disease.

On Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration gave green signal to drugmaker Novo Nordisk's diabetes drug Tresiba. For two years, the agency had been rejecting a form of insulin that works longer.

The agency also gave green signal to the company's Ryzodeg, which is an injection that is a combination of Tresiba and a man-made form of insulin. Novo Nordisk is the world's leading maker of insulin, which is a hormone usually produced by the pancreas that assists the body in using glucose for energy.

According to Thomson Reuters Cortellis, Tresiba is already available in 30 countries, and by 2020, analysts forecast annual sales of $2.4 billion.

Martin Shkreli, founder and CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, has been slammed by businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for hiking up price of a 62-year-old drug, Daraprim.

On Wednesday, in a press conference held in South Carolina, Trump campaigned for the whole day and also gave statements on different issues, together with the most recent controversies in the pharmaceutical industry.

He was asked about his opinion about Martin Shkreli. Trump said in response that he is like a 'spoiled brat' and that he thinks of him as 'hot stuff', especially during the beginning of the week when he was inclined towards controversies.

AbbVie Inc, a research-based pharmaceutical company, said one of its experimental drugs has improved symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis in mid-stage studies. The company now has scrapped its plan to buy rights to a similar treatment from Belgium's Galapagos NV.

The positive results from the phase-2 trial and the company's decision to move the drug into phase 3 indicates that it is all prepared to maintain its market share even after Humira's patent expires at the end of 2016.

AbbVie's Humira has been the world's best-selling drug since years. Its best-in-class status is due to its widespread use in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that affects almost 1.3 million Americans.