Focus Rheums| ACR Convergence 2024 Previews

An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

Growth Hormone Reduces Fractures in Women with Osteoporosis

Will Boggs, MD  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Growth hormone is associated with a decrease in fractures in women with postmenopausal osteoporosis even a decade after treatment ceases, researchers from Sweden report. “We were surprised and pleased to find that the patients had a reduced risk of fracture so many years after the growth hormone treatment was ceased,” Dr. Emily…

Use Behavioral ‘Nudging’ to Tackle Gender, Health Challenges

Joseph D'Urso  |  

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation)—Many of the world’s biggest challenges, such as encouraging people to buy life-saving drugs or unpicking deeply rooted sexism, can be tackled by using subtle psychological cues to change the way people behave, according to experts in London. Behavioral economics, also known as “nudging,” is about making people more likely to make…

Novartis Launches First U.S. Biosimilar Drug at 15% Discount

Ben Hirschler & Michael Shields  |  

LONDON/ZURICH (Reuters)—Novartis kicked off a new era in U.S. medicine on Thursday with the launch of the first biosimilar copy of a biotechnology drug approved in the U.S., at a discount of 15% to the original. The Swiss drugmaker’s generics unit Sandoz said Zarxio, its form of Amgen’s white blood cell-boosting product Neupogen (filgrastim), would…

Governments Are Not Following Advice on MERS

Tom Miles  |  

GENEVA (Reuters)—Governments are not doing all they should to tackle the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, a committee of health experts at the World Health Organization said on Thursday. The WHO’s emergency committee, which meets regularly to consider the international response to the disease, said in a statement that its advice had not been completely…

Alcohol Use Complicates Chronic Disease Management in Teens

Will Boggs, MD  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—High school students with chronic medical conditions who drink alcohol are more likely than their nondrinking peers to forget or skip taking their medications, according to an online survey. “I was surprised to see such a clear association between alcohol use and medication nonadherence—a finding which really brings home the need to…

Can We Get Closer to a Cure for RA?

Marc Feldmann & Ravinder N. Maini  |  

Despite new therapeutics, progress for RA patients has virtually stalled over the past 10 years. In this article, the authors discuss many options to advance to a cure and the evidence for them, including the combination of low-dose methotrexate and anti-TNF; targeting angiogenesis and tissue damage pathways directly; antigen-specific therapy; potential combination of TNF and IL17 blockade; and targeting inhibitory receptors and regulatory T cells.

FDA Warns of Severe Joint Pain Risk with DPP-4 Diabetes Drugs

Reuters Staff  |  

(Reuters)—A class of diabetes drugs that include Merck & Co Inc.’s Januvia has been linked with severe joint pain, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday. The FDA said it had identified 33 cases of severe joint pain in patients taking a class of drugs known as DPP-4 inhibitors between Oct. 16, 2006,…

FDA Proposes Adding Suffixes to Distinguish Biosimilar Drug Names

Toni Clarke  |  

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—The U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed on Thursday identifying cheaper versions of biologic drugs with a suffix to distinguish them from their more expensive, branded counterparts. The FDA said its draft guidance is designed to prevent the inadvertent substitution of non-interchangeable products and to make it easier to monitor and track usage once…