Dr. Reddy's Announces the Launch of Moxifloxacin Hydrochloride Tablets

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. RDY +0.67% announced today that it has launched Moxifloxacin Hydrochloride Tablets, 400 mg, a therapeutic equivalent generic version of Avelox® (moxifloxacin HCl) tablets 400 mg in the US market on March 04, 2014, following the approval by the United States Food & Drug Administration (USFDA).                            

The Avelox® (moxifloxacin HCl) tablets brand had U.S. sales of approximately $195 Million for the most recent twelve months ending in December 2013 according to IMS Health*.   Dr. Reddy’s Moxifloxacin Hydrochloride Tablets, 400 mg is available in bottle counts of 30.

WARNING: Fluoroquinolones, including moxifloxacin, are associated with an increased risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture in all ages. This risk is further increased in older patients usually over 60 years of age, in patients taking corticosteroid drugs, and in patients with kidney, heart or lung transplants.

Fluoroquinolones, including moxifloxacin, may exacerbate muscle weakness in persons with myasthenia gravis. Avoid moxifloxacin in patients with known history of myasthenia gravis.            
Disclaimer                                                                                                              
This press release includes forward-looking statements, as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations and projections about future events. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially. Such factors include, but are not limited to, changes in local and global economic conditions, our ability to successfully implement our strategy, the market acceptance of and demand for our products, our growth and expansion, technological change and our exposure to market risks. By their nature, these expectations and projections are only estimates and could be materially different from actual results in the future    

Source:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dr-reddys-announces-the-launch-of-moxifloxacin-hydrochloride-tablets-2014-03-05?reflink=MW_news_stmp

                                      

Three day breast cancer conference from tomorrow

A three day International conference on multidisciplinary management of breast cancer will be held here from tomorrow.

Dr. Sanjay Sharman, President Breast Cancer Foundation of India will be among the speakers at the inaugural function.

As part of the conference a Public Health function will be held to highlight the prevention and curablity of breast cancer on March 9, which would be inaugurated by Chief Minister Oommen chandy here, Prof Dr C S Madhu, organising chairman of the conference told reporters today.

Sessions on surgical, medical raditation oncology will also be held.

Oncologists from various hospitals are participating.

In Kerala, in a year about 35,000 new cancer cases were being reported of which the largest cases are that of breast cancer, Madhu said.

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/three-day-breast-cancer-conference-from-tomorrow-114030500795_1.html

Researchers identify 'carbohydrates in a coal mine' for cancer detection

Researchers at New York University and the University of Texas at Austin have discovered that carbohydrates serve as identifiers for cancer cells.

Their findings, which appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show how these molecules may serve as signals for cancer and explain what's going on inside these cells, pointing to new ways in which sugars function as a looking glass into the workings of their underlying structures. "Carbohydrates can tell us a lot about what's going on inside of a cell, so they are potentially good markers for disease," said Lara Mahal, an associate professor in NYU's Department of Chemistry and the study's corresponding author. "Our study reveals how cancer cells produce certain 'carbohydrate signatures' that we can now identify."        

Carbohydrates, or glycans, are complex cell-surface molecules that control multiple aspects of cell biology, including cancer metastasis. But less understood is the link between categories of cells and corresponding carbohydrate structures. That is, what do certain carbohydrates on a cell's surfaces tell us about its characteristics and inner workings or, more succinctly, how do you read a code backwards?                                                   

  In the PNAS study, the researchers examined the role of microRNA, non-coding RNA that are regulators of the genome. Specific miRNAs—such as miR-200—play a role in controlling tumor growth. Using microarray technology developed by NYU's Mahal, the team examined cancer cells in an effort to see how they generated a carbohydrate signature. Specifically, they mapped how miRNA controls carbohydrate signatures.                                           

 In their analysis, the researchers could see that miRNA molecules serve as major regulators of the cell's surface-level carbohydrates—a discovery that showed, for the first time, that miRNA play a significant regulatory role in this part of the cell, also known as the glycome. Moreover, they could see which regulatory process was linked to specific carbohydrates.             

  "Carbohydrates aren't just telling you the type of cell they came from, but also by which process they were created," explains Mahal. "Our results showed that there are regulatory networks of miRNAs and that they are associated with specific carbohydrate codes."

Source: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-03-carbohydrates-coal-cancer.html#nRlv

Experimental drug helps body fight advanced melanoma

An experimental drug that harnesses the power of the body's immune system to fight cancer has helped some patients with advanced melanoma keep their disease in check for several years, a new study indicates                                                                                                                                                                                Researchers think the drug, which is called nivolumab, may help reset the immune system so that as a tumor adds new cells, the immune system is able to clear them away.                                                                                                                     "We're hypothesizing that we have reset the balance between the immune system and the tumor so there's a state of equilibrium or co-existence. And that situation can go on for quite a long time, and we don't really know how long it can go on," said study author Dr. Suzanne Topalian, director of the melanoma program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.                                                                                                                                                                                      An expert who was not involved in the study called the results "remarkable."                                                                                                             "This really offers patients tremendous amounts of hope. We're talking about potentially lengthening patients' survival to the point that they might not die of their disease at all," said Dr. Anthony Olszanski, co-director of the Medical Oncology Melanoma Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center, in Philadelphia. The finding is part of the latest round of results of an early trial of nivolumab, which was tested in 107 patients. The patients enrolled in the study between 2008 and 2012.                                                                                                                Some tumors make molecules that switch off the immune system's ability to recognize and kill cancer cells. Nivolumab essentially releases the brakes a cancer has applied to immune attack cells, restoring the body's ability to clear the disease.                                                                                                                     All of the patients in the study had the dangerous skin cancer known as advanced melanoma, and 80 percent had tumors that had spread to other organs. More than half of patients had tried at least two previous treatments without success.                                                                                                                People in the study received intravenous doses of the drug every two weeks for up to two years. Patients stopped treatment if their tumors disappeared, the side effects became too toxic, their tumors continued to grow or they withdrew their consent to participate in the study.                                                                                                                         Source: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-03-experimental-drug-body-advanced-melanoma.html#nRlv

BPA linked to prostate cancer, study shows

Findings by Cincinnati Cancer Center researchers show that levels of bisphenol A (BPA) in men's urine could be a marker of prostate cancer and that low levels of BPA exposure can cause cellular changes in both non-malignant and malignant prostate cells.

This research, published in the March 3 edition of PLOS ONE, provides the first evidence that urinary BPA levels may help predict prostate cancer and that disruption of a cell duplication cycle through exposure to low-dose BPA may cause cancer development in the prostate.

BPA, an environmental pollutant with estrogen activity, is used to make hard, clear plastic and is common in many food product containers. It has been linked to neurological defects, diabetes and a number of cancers, including breast and prostate.

Principle investigator Shuk-mei Ho, PhD, director of the Cincinnati Cancer Center, Jacob G. Schmidlapp Chair of Environmental Health and professor at the University of Cincinnati College Of Medicine, says that human exposure to BPA is a common occurrence and that animal studies have shown that BPA contributes to development of prostate cancer but that human data are scarce.

"Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men in North America, and one in six men will develop it over their lifetime," she says. "However, the cancer is rarely diagnosed in men under the age of 40 with almost two-thirds of cases reported in men at age 65.

"Major contributing factors other than age are race and family history, whereas little is known about the impact of endocrine disruptors on prostate cancer."

Ho says that in the United States, exposure to BPA is widespread—exceeding 90 percent in the general population—and that absorption through the skin, inhalation and ingestion from contaminated food and water are the major kinds of exposure.

"As an endocrine disruptor that mimics estrogen and thyroid hormones, BPA also acts as a metabolic and immune disruptor," says Ho. "The adverse health effects of BPA are extensive, and studies in animals have proven this".

"However, human studies linking BPA exposure to heightened cancer risk are limited," she continues. "Our study examined the association between urinary BPA levels and prostate cancer and assessed the effects of BPA on the initiation of centrosome abnormalities as an underlying mechanism promoting prostate cancer formation."

Source: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-03-bpa-linked-prostate-cancer.html#nRlv