Fda, Drugs | featured news

The Food and Drug Administration says it has approved a new form of a best-selling breast cancer drug that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones. The drug Kadcyla (kad-SY'-luh) from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a double-shot of anti-tumor poison.

Fulyzaq is designed to treat diarrhea in patients taking HIV and AIDS drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved Arena Pharmaceutical's anti-obesity pill Belviq, the first new prescription drug for long-term weight loss to enter the U.S. market in over a decade.

The first drug shown to prevent HIV infection won the endorsement of a panel of federal advisers Thursday, clearing the way for a landmark approval in the 30-year fight against the virus that causes AIDS....

The emergency contraceptive Plan B will not be made available over-the-counter to younger teens, the Food and Drug Administration announced today, exposing a rift between the agency and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

If you want the FDA to approve more innovative, new drugs based on promising but early clinical results, you have to give the FDA a way to revoke those approvals later on, should larger trials prove that those drugs aren't as safe or effective as they first seemed. This is why the FDA should be congratulated for the way it has handled the Avastin breast cancer saga, and why I hope we will see the FDA handle more cases like this one, not less.

Federal health regulators have concerns about bladder and breast cancer seen in patients taking an experimental diabetes pill from Bristol-Myers ...

Federal health officials say a highly-anticipated drug to treat hepatitis C made by Merck appears to cure more patients in less time than established drugs that have been used for 20 years. But the agency has questions about how the drug should be combined with older medicines for the maximum effect....

The drug, a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone, is being marketed under the name Makena.

The maker of the painkiller Darvon is pulling the drug off the market at the request of public health officials who say the 50-year-old pill causes potentially deadly heart rhythms.