TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| Letters: Sticks and Stones (2 Letters) Letters to the editor. feeds.nytimes.com |
Researchers: Thick coat of oil on Gulf sea floor By 2010-09-13T16:10:34ZNEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Researchers say they've found patches of oil believed to be from the BP leak on the Gulf of Mexico sea floor. Some of these are two inches thick.... hosted.ap.org |
Florida panthers bound back thanks to Texas mates By LAURAN NEERGAARD 2010-09-23T19:34:37ZWASHINGTON (AP) -- In the quest to save the endangered Florida panther, their Texas cousins were the cat's meow. Wildlife biologists moved eight female panthers from Texas - close relatives yet genetically distinct - into south Florida 15 years ago in hopes of boosting reproduction, and the immigration paid off.... hosted.ap.org |
David Brennan of AstraZeneca says public sector crucial to drug research AstraZeneca chief executive stresses need for co-operation in tackling problem of antibiotic resistanceAstraZeneca's chief executive will this week urge ministers to work with the pharmaceutical industry to share the risks and costs in developing effective antibiotics and other treatments.Speaking on public-private partnerships at the Asian Business Leaders conference on Wednesday, David Brennan will stress the importance of public sector bodies and NGOs teaming up with pharmaceutical groups to tackle the problem of antibiotic resistance."I'm clear that the most certain way for us to create value for our shareholders is by doing something useful or of value for patients," Brennan will say.Governments are keen to accelerate research on antibiotics after decades of neglect. Pharmaceutical companies and governments have blamed each other for the paucity of new drugs to help combat hospital superbugs and other diseases."I know, in the past, some NGOs and public sector bodies have worried [that] our aims are incompatible with their approach," Brennan will say. "I think that view is now changing. Increasingly both public and private sector organisations are recognising that by working together we can make a bigger contribution to tackling some of the world's biggest problems."Pharmaceutical groups are collaborating with universities, biotech companies and even rival drugmakers to share expertise and costs. Last year AstraZeneca formed more than a hundred new partnerships.A spokeswoman for the company said: "If we think [a treatment is] not commercially viable, we can give it to somebody in the public sector who is willing to spend money to develop it."In his speech, Brennan points to antibiotic resistance as an area where partnerships offer real potential. The discovery of antibiotics 70 years ago revolutionised the treatment of bacterial infections and saved millions of lives. But what were once regarded as miracle medicines are losing effectiveness as the bacteria they are fighting have become resistant to them.The rapid spread of multi-drug-resistant bacteria led the medical journal The Lancet: Infectious Diseases to ask in August "Is this the end of antibiotics?"Brennan admits that in the past 30 years, only two new classes of antibiotics have been developed.Margaret Hamburg, commissioner at the US Food and Drug Administration, said last week that "the range of new antibiotics is disturbingly limited".Many pharmaceutical companies have stopped investing in the development of antibiotics because they do not regard them as a lucrative area, given the speed at which bacteria build up resistance to these drugs.Along with Novartis and Merck, AstraZeneca is one of few companies that are investing in the area. The Anglo-Swedish group last year bought Novexel, a French firm spun off from Sanofi-Aventis, which specialises in treatments for infections that have become resistant to antibiotics.In the fight against tuberculosis, AstraZeneca and other pharmaceutical companies have teamed up with government agencies, academics and NGOs in a collaboration led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the TB Alliance and the Critical Path Institute."Partnerships are happening; they are working; and they are making a real difference," Brennan will conclude.AstraZenecaPharmaceuticals industryAntibioticsMedical researchJulia Kolleweguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Green: Another Strange Winter, This One Courtesy of La Niña La Nina, a band of cooler-than-normal water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, is likely to bring some extreme winter weather to parts of the United States, according to the annual winter outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. feeds.nytimes.com |