Research
16 Jan 2012
Philips today announced enrollment of the first patients in its CHILL-MI clinical study. CHILL-MI is a prospective, randomised, multi-centre study designed to further evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the company’s InnerCool RTx endovascular cooling system in patients suffering from ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). The study will enroll 120 patients at multiple sites in Europe with a primary endpoint of reducing infarct size as a percentage of myocardium at risk, as assessed by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The study will also reinforce the safety and...
Research
06 Jan 2012
The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has welcomed the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) release of adverse reaction reports related to Septrin, a medicine for the treatment of bacterial infections. This follows a complaint from a law firm, whose request for access to these reports had been refused. EMA eventually followed the Ombudsman's recommendation to release the adverse reaction reports.
The Ombudsman stated: "I commend the important progress that EMA has recently made in improving the transparency of its work. Such improvements ensure that...
EU News
05 Dec 2011
Leaders from policy, medical and patient environments address European heart health in joint approach
On November 29th 2011 in the European Parliament (Brussels), Cristian Busoi MEP, along with European heart advocates, announced the launch of their new AFib Task Force. The Task Force has been established to help address the increasing challenge posed by Atrial Fibrillation (AFib), a cost driver for European health care systems:
AFib is the most common form of cardiac arrhythmia, already affecting more than 6 million Europeans, and will increase in prevalence as Europe’s population...
Industry News
05 Dec 2011
Final results were presented from the AIM-HIGH study, a National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) study. The study was designed to test whether raising HDL "good" cholesterol by adding Niaspan to simvastatin would provide an additional 25 percent reduction in cardiovascular outcomes in patients with established cardiovascular disease and well-controlled LDL "bad" cholesterol levels. The study was stopped early following an interim analysis in May and found that combination therapy did not result in an additional reduction in cardiovascular events beyond treatment...
Management, Research
17 Oct 2011
An international team of scientists led by Monash University researchers has uncovered how a common hospital bacterium becomes a deadly superbug that kills increasing numbers of hospital patients worldwide and accounts for an estimated $3.2 billion each year in health care costs in the US alone. Their findings appear October 13th in the Open Access journal PLoS Pathogens.
Team leader Dr Dena Lyras and lead author Dr Glen Carter, from the Monash University School of Biomedical Sciences, have linked a naturally occurring mutation in the microorganism Clostridium difficile to severe and...
