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A small dose — some of the latest and strangest news from the pharma industry

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A brief round up of some of the developments in the industry, including antibiotic research, curious side effects and the top performing companies.

‘Super’ drugs for superbugs…

‘A major wake-up call for everybody’ is how Public Health England (PHE) has described the world’s worst-ever case of super-gonorrhoea only just about being cured with a singular antibiotic — ertapenem — after it was not curable with the regular treatment. So, as we seem to be moving in reverse against antimicrobial resistance is there anything out there that may offer hope?

In fact, there have been a few ‘super’ drug breakthroughs recently with researchers successfully treating drug-resistant bacteria in a clinical setting. Here is a brief rundown of some of the exciting news happening globally:

Breaking through in Britain: A team of researchers at Lincoln University — in collaboration with groups from Liverpool University and researchers from the Netherlands, Belgium and Singapore — have just provided evidence in a rodent model that an improved, synthetic version of a natural antibiotic called teixobactin can treat MRSA and vancomycin-resistant enterococci. These simplified versions of the natural antibiotic have the potential for commercial production.

USA putting up a united effort: Of late, there have been a few studies into various potential options from US researchers. One, from a team at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, is a family of molecules called retinoids. These compounds were found to not only kill normal MRSA cells but also the dormant/persister cells as well. The other comes from a team at the Rockefeller University which uncovered natural compounds in soil samples — malacidins — that work as calcium-dependent antibiotics against MRSA in rodent models.

Future promise from France: French company Nosopharm’s new class of antibiotics — odilorhabdins, produced by symbiotic bacteria found in soil-dwelling nematode worms — work by targeting the ribosome and uniquely binding to a place on the ribosome that has not been used by other known antibiotics. In collaborative research, this new class of antibiotics were found to cure mice infected with several pathogenic bacteria. The first in-human clinical trials of the company’s lead candidate are expected in 2020.

Huge hope from Hong Kong research: In the University of Hong Kong, a team of medical chemists have found that the bismuth-based metallodrug — colloidal bismuth subcitrate (CBS), used to treat peptic ulcers — can paralyse multi-resistant superbugs, such as Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), and suppress the development of resistance to antibiotics. This, in effect, should extend the lifespan of currently used antibiotics and as the drug is already approved by the US FDA it is hoped to be ready for human clinical trials soon.

Curious consequences and other strange side effects

After a man claimed the painkiller, Pregabalin, completely changed his sexuality we scoured the internet in search of what we consider to be the top five weirdest side effects that may potentially occur when taking various medications…

5. Amnesia— short-term memory loss can happen after taking some medications, although generally these effects go away once the patient stops taking the drug.

4. Colourful urine— ranging from dark brown to alarmingly red, pink or even blue there are multiple drugs out there that can cause a change to the colour of urine. A good guide to which compounds cause vibrantly coloured urine can be found at www.globalrph.com/urine.htm

3. Loss of fingerprints — cancer drug capecitabine could be the culprit of this side effect. On studying the drug’s effects, a senior consultant in medical oncology at the National Cancer Centre in Singapore noted that it may cause hand-foot syndrome, which in turn leads to the loss of fingerprints!

2. Height reduction — a common steroidal medication, Prednisone, may make you shorter, although in a systematic review of randomised trials, performed by a team at the University of Montreal in Canada, it was found that in paediatric growth rates the reduction was on average about half a centimetre in the first year of treatment, which then tailed off.

1. Gambling urges — some patients taking drugs to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease or restless leg syndrome have ended up with a gambling addiction. GlaxoSmithKline, which manufactures the drug ReQuip (ropinirole), lists ‘impulse control/compulsive behaviours’ in the warning and precautions for the drug, recommending patients talk to their doctor if they or their family notice any unusual behaviours while on the medication.

Topping the charts…

Data and analytics company, GlobalData, has released its list of the top performing pharma companies by market cap for the year 2017, featuring some interesting positional changes and shifts from the prior year. Here are the top 10:

  1. Johnson & Johnson — retaining its position in the top spot for 2017.
  2. Roche — moves up a place into second.
  3. Pfizer — drops down a place switching with Roche.
  4. Novartis — no change for the Swiss pharma giant.
  5. AbbVie — rising three places this year and increasing market cap by more than 50%.
  6. Merck & Co — takes a drop by one place even though its market cap is increased.
  7. Novo Nordisk — another climber, rising from 12th place.
  8. Amgen — gone down a couple of places from its position last year.
  9. Sanofi — the same for Sanofi which goes from 7th to 9th.
  10. Bayer — rising from 13th to get into the top 10 and break the $1 billion market cap value.

Source:

https://www.globaldata.com/top-25-global-pharma-companies-market-cap-end-2017/

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