The Year in Medicine 2012: News That Made a Difference (A year of firsts)
Text was adapted from Medscape.
2012 was a year of firsts in drug and device development.
As you will see, there seems to be some advances in several medical fields that we cannot avoid to mention. It is really exciting how our approach to diseases that have been difficult to treat for years, now is different. Enjoy going thought all this important moments in medicine !
May 2012: pazopanib, the first new treatment for sarcoma in decades, was approved. The drug is marketed by GlaxoSmithKline under the brand name Votrient.
On July 16, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine ( Truvada, Gilead) was the first drug approved to prevent HIV infection in uninfected high-risk individuals.
And about 2 weeks before that, the FDA approved the first at-home, over-the-counter HIV test, which could potentially inform thousands of Americans about their HIV status.
On November 6, the FDA approved tofacitinib (Xeljanz, Pfizer), the first oral Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor to treat adults with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis who have not responded adequately to, or are intolerant of, methotrexate.
Obesity Drugs: 2 Approved, 1 to Come
On June 27, the FDA approved lorcaserin (Belviq, Arena Pharmaceuticals) for the treatment of obesity after being presented with new data that settled concerns about a cancer signal previously noted when the agency rejected the drug in October 2010.
(August) Less than a month later, a second drug to treat obesity was approved, phentermine-topiramate (Qsymia, formerly Qnexa; Vivus).
Out breaking News for Patients with Multiple sclerosis and "We Doctors" who treat them !
September 12, 2012 — The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a second oral agent for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS), teriflunomide ( Aubagio, Genzyme/Sanofi).
Teriflunomide is a once-daily oral immunomodulator developed as a disease-modifying therapy for MS. It reversibly inhibits dihydroorotate dehydrogenase, a key mitochondrial enzyme involved in de novo pyrimidine synthesis for DNA replication. As a result, the drug reduces T- and B-cell proliferation and function in response to autoantigens but preserves the replication and function of cells living on their pyrimidine pool, including hematopoietic cells or memory T cells, through the so-called salvage pathway.
Genzyme also has a second candidate treatment for MS under consideration by FDA with the phase 3 program of alemtuzumab ( Lemtrada). Alemtuzumab is given for 5 days intravenously, then for 3 days 1 year later, and has been shown to be superior to interferon in the CARE-MS 1 and CARE-MS 2 trials.
Two other candidates for oral treatment are in late-stage investigation: BG-12 (dimethyl fumarate, Biogen Idec) has been shown in 2 phase 3 trials, DEFINE and CONFIRM, to reduce relapse rates, and has been submitted for review to the FDA and the European Medicines Agency.
Another agent, laquinimod (Teva Pharmaceuticals Inc./Active Biotech), had something of a setback when large phase 3 trials ALLEGRO and BRAVO showed somewhat divergent results; now, a third large trial, CONCERTO, will hopefully clarify effects of the drug.
