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Archived News Headlines
We have been archiving all OBR daily news stories since March 2008. Use the box below to search our archives for specific articles and content.
Please note: we do not "host" news articles on our website. When a media source removes an article from their website the link becomes inactive, and you will only be able to see the date, title, first sentence and media source that published the article.
Key Congressional Committee Weighs Proposals to Reform Medicare Physician Payment System
(Office of Congresswoman Allyson Y. Schwartz) May 7, 2013 - The House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee held a hearing today on options for repealing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula and reforming the Medicare physician payment system to reward quality and value.
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Japanese Company Buys Fort Collins Vaccine Developer
(Denver Post) May 7, 2013 - Inviragen, a privately held biopharmaceutical company based in Fort Collins, said Tuesday it has agreed to a sale to Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. for $35 million in cash.
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Merck: FDA Accepts Application for Dissolvable Ragweed Allergy Pill
(Morningstar/Dow Jones Newswires) May 8, 2013 - Merck & Co. said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accepted its biologics license application for a dissolvable tablet to treat ragweed pollen allergies and expects the agency to complete its review in the first half of 2014.
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Cubist Late-stage Antibiotic Gets Two More Fast-track Designations
(Boston Business Journal) May 7, 2013 - Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. has received Fast Track status in two more areas for its investigational antibiotic to treat urinary tract infections, abdominal infections and hospital-acquired pneumonia.
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Many Medical Guidelines Don't Consider Costs
(Reuters Health) May 7, 2013 - Professional medical societies don't often consider costs when they're developing their treatment guidelines for specific conditions, according to a new study.
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Hospital Billing Varies Wildly, Government Data Shows
(New York Times) May 8, 2013 - Data being released for the first time shows that hospitals charge Medicare vastly differing amounts for the same procedure, often far above what the program typically reimburses.
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San Francisco Surrenders in Fight Over Cell Phone Warnings
(Reuters) May 7, 2013 - San Francisco city leaders, after losing a key round in court against the cell phone industry, have agreed to revoke an ordinance that would have been the first in the United States to require retailers to warn consumers about potentially dangerous radiation levels.
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New Cancer Alliance to Serve Patients Across the Region
(Cancer Care Northwest) May 7, 2013 - Cancer Care Northwest, Kootenai Health and Providence Health Care – the region's premier health care leaders in cancer services – have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to form a new regional cancer alliance aimed at elevating the quality, coordination and care experience for patients and their families throughout the inland northwest.
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Cancer Biorepository Speeds Clinical Trials, Drug Development, Moffitt Analysis Shows
(Moffitt) May 7, 2013 - Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center say identifying and selecting participants for phase II cancer clinical trials from a centralized warehouse of patient-donated biological data expedites participant accrual, reduces trial size, saves money, and may speed test drugs through the drug development pipeline.
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Coalition Asks Congressional Appropriators for $32 Billion for NIH
(ASCO in Action) May 7, 2013 - One Voice Against Cancer, a coalition of public interest groups—including ASCO—representing millions of cancer researchers, physicians, patients, and survivors, sent a letter to the leadership of the House and Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittees advocating for at least $32 billion for the National Institutes of Health in FY 2014.
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Message from Harold Varmus: Information on NIH and NCI Grant Funding Following Sequestration
(UF Shands/NCI) May 7, 2013 - To the NCI-supported scientific community:
A message that I sent to you in March (appended below) outlined the general approach that the NCI planned to take to absorb an anticipated reduction in our FY2013 budget.
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AUA Releases New Guidelines for Treating Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer
(AUA) May 6, 2013 - Metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) remains an incurable disease, but new treatments –including immunotherapeutic, chemotherapeutic agents, anti-androgens and androgen synthesis inhibitors – may improve outcomes in certain patients, according to a new clinical guideline released today by the American Urological Association (AUA) during its 2013 Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.
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Bristol-Myers Sues Genentech Over ‘Cabilly’ Patents
(Bloomberg) May 7, 2013 - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. sued Roche Holding AG's Genentech unit seeking a ruling it doesn’t infringe patents used to make treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
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Researchers Discover Possible Trigger for Spread of Head and Neck Cancer Cells
(UCLA) May 7, 2013 - Very little has been known about the epigenetic events — developmental and environmental factors affecting genes — that occur prior to the invasive growth of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas and their spread to other parts of the body, or metastasis.
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Duke Researchers Describe How Breast Cancer Cells Acquire Drug Resistance
(DukeHealth.org) May 7, 2013 - A seven-year quest to understand how breast cancer cells resist treatment with the targeted therapy lapatinib has revealed a previously unknown molecular network that regulates cell death.
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Genetic Variations Associated With Susceptibility to Bacteria Linked to Stomach Disorders
(JAMA Network Journals) May 7, 2013 - Two genome-wide association studies and a subsequent meta-analysis have found that certain genetic variations are associated with susceptibility to Helicobacter pylori, a bacteria that is a major cause of gastritis and stomach ulcers and is linked to stomach cancer.
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Initiation of Breast Cancer Treatment Varies By Race; Patient-Doctor Communication Is Key
(Georgetown University Medical Center) May 7, 2013 - Black women with breast cancer were found to be three times more likely than their white counterparts to delay treatment for more than 90 days — a time delay associated with increased deaths from the disease, according to a new study led by researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
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Surgical Volume Should be Considered When Judging Value of Procedures
(Henry Ford Health System) May 5, 2013 - The volume of cases performed at an institution each year has a direct effect on the outcome of surgical procedures, and should always be considered when looking at the benefits of a technique, according to a team of researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
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Robot-Assisted Kidney Cancer Surgery Offers Benefits at a Cost
(Henry Ford Health System) May 7, 2013 - Robot-assisted surgery to remove kidney cancers has seen a rapid increase in use, and has both replaced and proven safer than laparoscopic procedures for the same purpose, according to a study by the Vattikuti Urology Institute at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
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Clinical Success Rates for New Cancer Drugs Doubled from the Mid-1990s to Early-2000s
(Tufts CSDD) May 7, 2013 - Clinical success rates for new cancer drugs doubled between the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, while the number of new cancer drugs entering clinical testing increased 50 percent during the same time, according to an analysis recently completed by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development.
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Amgen Announces Top-Line Results of Vectibix® (panitumumab) Phase 3 Head-to-Head Study Against Erbitux® (cetuximab) in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
(MarketWatch) May 7, 2013 - Amgen today announced that the Phase 3 head-to-head ASPECCT ('763) trial evaluating Vectibix® (panitumumab) versus Erbitux® (cetuximab) as a single agent for the treatment of chemorefractory metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) in patients with wild-type KRAS tumors (n=1,010) met its primary endpoint of non-inferiority for overall survival.
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Cholesterol Drugs May Boost Kidney Cancer Survival
(WebMD/HealthDay News) May 7, 2013 - Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs that are taken by millions of Americans might also improve survival from a type of kidney cancer called renal cell carcinoma, a new study suggests.
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Prostate Cancer May Be Deadlier for the Uninsured
(U.S. News & World Report/HealthDay News) May 7, 2013 - Men who are uninsured or underinsured get advanced prostate cancer at nearly four times the national average and don't survive as long as other men with advanced disease, a new study says.
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New Test Improves Assessment of Prostate Cancer Risk, Study Says
(New York Times) May 8, 2013 - A new test can help distinguish aggressive prostate cancer from less threatening ones, potentially saving many men from unneeded operations for tumors that would never hurt them, researchers are reporting.
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Lilly’s CEO Lechleiter Plans Surgery for Dilated Artery
(Bloomberg) May 7, 2013 - Eli Lilly & Co. said John Lechleiter, the drugmaker’s chairman and chief executive officer, will undergo surgery for a dilated aorta, an asymptomatic condition from which he is expected to recover.
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