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Keeping Diabetes Under Control Still Difficult For Many Americans
Only slightly more than half of the 18 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes had their blood sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure under optimum control in 2006, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
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Food And Drug Administration Moves Towards Greater Openness
The Food and Drug Administration is taking steps towards greater openness. The Associated Press reports that FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg "announced Tuesday she has created a task force to make recommendations on how the agency can release more information in such areas as drug evaluation and enforcement matters. She wants a report in six months." Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein will head the task force, which will represent all of the FDA"s major divisions as well as its law enforcement branch. It will hold two public meetings with the first on June 24. "The FDA has long operated under strict confidentiality rules," the AP reports, and in opening up information, one sensitive issue will be what to do with unpublished clinical trial data from drug manufacturers. Despite such concerns, "Hamburg said she believes the need for secrecy may have been taken too far, and is harming the FDA"s credibility within the medical community and among consumers" (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/2).
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Risk Of Liver Cancer In Women With Hepatitis B Virus Infection Varies With Number Of Pregnancies
Risk for hepatocellular carcinoma, a primary malignancy of the liver, was statistically significantly higher among women with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection than among women without the virus, according to a study published online June 17 in the JNCI.
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ImmunoVaccine Technologies Partners With FIT Biotech To Advance A Therapeutic HIV Vaccine

ImmunoVaccine Technologies Inc. (IVT), a Canadian vaccine development company, announced a research partnership with FIT Biotech, a Finland-based , clinical stage company that develops DNA vaccines. This research will formulate FIT Biotech"s GTU(R) MultiHIV DNA plasmid with IVT"s DepoVax(TM) vaccine delivery system to advance a therapeutic HIV vaccine. "DepoVax(TM) will act as a vector to deliver FIT Biotech"s GTU(R) MultiHIV DNA vaccine and our goal is to develop a more sophisticated and efficient HIV vaccine candidate," commented Dr. Marc Mansour, Vice President R&D at IVT. The development of an HIV vaccine is complicated by the ability of the virus to mutate rapidly. FIT Biotech has addressed this challenge by designing a synthetic DNA plasmid, known as GTU(R) MultiHIV that covers the antigenic variability within HIV strains. GTU(R) MultiHIV and is comprised of the multi-epitope/multivalent HIV antigens. As FIT Biotech"s lead vaccine candidate, GTU(R) MultiHIV has the potential to trigger an immune response that slows the progression of HIV in infected individuals. IVT"s pre-clinical research demonstrates that DepoVax(TM) effectively delivers DNA plasmids into draining lymph nodes with as little as one dose. The DepoVax(TM) platform uses liposomes to encapsulate a target antigen, like GTU(R) MultiHIV, and adjuvant. DepoVax(TM) also relies on a hydrophobic carrier to create a depot effect that significantly enhances vaccine induced cell-mediated and humoral immunity. This pre-clinical research partnership will combine the complementary technologies of DepoVax(TM) and GTU(R) MultiHIV. Both IVT and FIT Biotech will examine the novel vaccine"s capabilities of inducing cell-mediated and humoral immunity against HIV virus. "By testing DepoVax(TM) in combination with GTU(R) MultiHIV plasmid, we are working towards developing a superior vaccine candidate for therapeutic use against HIV and AIDS," said Kalevi Reijonen, President and CEO at FIT Biotech. The WHO reports that 33 million people are living with HIV and the epidemic is rapidly expanding with 2.7 million people newly infected in 2007. Nearly all of them will develop AIDS-related complications, creating an urgent need for effective HIV therapeutic vaccines. Therapeutic vaccination offers the most hope for HIV infected individuals because it maintains a low viral load and has the potential to modify the course of the infection and its progression towards the AIDS disease. ImmunoVaccine Technologies Inc.


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