Ontario Premier Doug Ford appears to be dipping his toe into new territory — talking about removing Mexico from the North American trade agreement.

Canada's intelligence agency amassed a sizable file on Abousfian Abdelrazik's suspected terrorism ties in the early 2000s, although the validity of that intelligence was called into question during the Montreal man's Federal Court case.

Multiple routers with multiple networks for your home are coming to Australia.

THOUSANDS of fans stay up late to watch the English Premier League. But the UK leaving the EU could change all that.

SEMI Radradra’s sister has directly contradicted reports in the Fiji Times that her brother was leaving the NRL for French rugby.

Geoff Molson, Kent Hughes et Martin St-Louis avaient promis que le Canadien de Montréal serait dans le «mix» cette saison.

Elle tiendra la vedette de l’adaptation québécoise du succès mondial Ménopause aux côtés de Claudine Mercier, Catherine Sénart et Geneviève Charest.

Joël McGuirk a dénoncé son retrait imprévu du dernier plateau de «Tout le monde en parle», lundi, au micro de Sophie Durocher, à QUB radio.

HOW do you stop the young folk from heading to the big smoke? You build a school and teach them how to be jackaroos and jillaroos.

Technology differences mean meters in northern England and Scotland may not work properly, energy firm body admits.

Four workers red-flagged in a 2014 review of SA’s troubled child protection agency remain suspended on full pay.

Si octobre célèbre la fin des récoltes, plusieurs légumes demeurent disponibles lors de la saison froide.

Oversimplification about integration of traditional and modern treatment systems often creates confusion among the stakeholders, and nobody understands the reality of the integration and what it is meant for, said Dr.

It is difficult to disentangle Russian and Chinese scientists from international science cooperation. That is a good thing

Today’s guest post comes from Kimberley Chiang, Vice President of Biopharma Commercial Solutions at CoverMyMeds

Kimberley highlghts the crucial roles of field reimbursement managers in removing access and reimbursement barriers. She then identifies the keys to successful implementation of field reimbursement services.

To learn more, register for CoverMyMeds' November 13, 2024, webinar: Specialty Therapies & Field Reimbursement Services: Driving Better Outcomes for Brands and Patients.

Read on for Kimberley’s insights.
Read more »

Adam J. Fein, Ph.D., president of Drug Channels Institute (DCI) and the author of Drug Channels, invites you to join him for DCI’s new live video webinar:

Friday, December 13, 2024,

from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET

This post describes the event and explains how to purchase a registration. (Or, just click here to order.) The webinar will be broadcast from the Drug Channels studio in beautiful downtown Philadelphia.

This event is part of The Drug Channels 2024 Video Webinar Series. (Please note that our December 2024 webinar is *not* included with next year’s 2025 Video Webinar Series.)

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

Join Dr. Fein as he helps you and your team get ready for 2025 by outlining key issues and uncertainties that will surely affect your planning. This event can be both a capstone of your annual learning and a touchpoint for the future. DCI’s Outlook webinars have proven to be reliable and informative guides to crucial aspects of the ever-evolving healthcare industry.

During the event, Dr. Fein will share his latest thinking and projections on a wide range of topics, including:

• Latest predictions for the Inflation Reduction Act

• Expectations for the Medicare Part D market in 2025 and beyond

• Update on 340B Drug Pricing Program’s controversies

• Impact of the new Trump administration and Congress on the drug channel

• Vertical integration and consolidation trends—and prospects for dis-integration and de-consolidation

• The state of biosimilar markets

• What’s next for PBMs’ private label products and GPOs

• Retail pharmacy’s future

• Prospects for direct-to-patient channels

• What’s ahead for discount cards and cash-pay pharmacies

• The outlook for state and federal legislation on PBMs and the drug channel

• Gross-to-net bubble developments

• And much more!

PLUS: During the webinar, Dr. Fein will give participants an opportunity to unmute themselves and ask live questions. The webinar will last at least 90 minutes to accommodate audience questions.

As always, Dr. Fein will clearly distinguish his opinions and interpretations from the objective facts and data. He will draw from exclusive information found in DCI's economic reports .

Read on for full details on pricing and registration.
Read more »

Note to readers: After a period of inactivity CardioBrief is coming back, but with some big differences. This website, CardioBrief.Org, will remain my personal website. A new website, CVCTCardiobrief.com, will be the new home for my “professional” blogging activities. To develop this website I have joined forces with the global CVCT Forum. I look forward to...

Click here to continue reading...

The latest information about the novel coronavirus identified in Wuhan, China, and advice on how pharmacists can help concerned patients and the public.

Consultations on the reclassification of two progestogen-only contraceptive pills from prescription-only to pharmacy medicines have been launched.

Researchers around the world are working at record speed to find the best ways to treat and prevent COVID-19, from investigating the possibility of repurposing existing drugs to searching for novel therapies against the virus.

By Arthur O. Tzianabos, PhD, CEO of Lifordi Immunotherapeutics, as part of the From the Trenches feature of LifeSciVC As the biotech industry continues to pick up steam, I have been getting a number of phone calls from folks in

The post Stars and Scars… Some Lessons Learned About Leadership appeared first on LifeSciVC.

By Jonathan Montagu, CEO of HotSpot Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC As Boston’s weather has started its turn from the frigid darkness that is a northeast winter to the longer days and lighter conditions

The post Has Spring Sprouted New Growth in Immuno-Oncology? appeared first on LifeSciVC.

An AllTrials report for the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee this week has found that 33 NHS trust sponsors and six UK universities are reporting none of their clinical trial results, while others have gone from 0% to 100% following an announcement from the Select Committee in January that universities and NHS […]

When university and hospital trusts were called to the UK parliament last year to answer questions on why they were not following the rules on reporting results, we saw how effective the questioning from politicians was. Those of you who watched the parliamentary session saw the pressure the university representatives were put under. Because the politicians asked […]

The decade following passage of FDAAA has been one of easing standards for drug approvals in the US, most notably with the advent of “breakthrough” designation created by FDASIA in 2012 and the 21st Century Cures Act in 2016.

Although, as of this writing, there is no nominee for FDA Commissioner, it appears to be safe to say that the current administration intends to accelerate the pace of deregulation, mostly through further lowering of approval requirements. In fact, some of the leading contenders for the position are on record as supporting a return to pre-Kefauver-Harris days, when drug efficacy was not even considered for approval.

Build a better mouse model, and pharma will beat a path to your door - no laws needed.

In this context, it is at least refreshing to read a proposal to increase efficacy standards. This comes from two bioethicists at McGill University, who make the somewhat-startling case for a higher degree of efficacy evaluation before a drug begins any testing in humans.

We contend that a lack of emphasis on evidence for the efficacy of drug candidates is all too common in decisions about whether an experimental medicine can be tested in humans. We call for infrastructure, resources and better methods to rigorously evaluate the clinical promise of new interventions before testing them on humans for the first time.

The author propose some sort of centralized clearinghouse to evaluate efficacy more rigorously. It is unclear what they envision this new multispecialty review body’s standards for green-lighting a drug to enter human testing. Instead they propose three questions:

• What is the likelihood that the drug will prove clinically useful?
• Assume the drug works in humans. What is the likelihood of observing the preclinical results?
• Assume the drug does not work in humans. What is the likelihood of observing the preclinical results?

These seem like reasonable questions, I suppose – and are likely questions that are already being asked of preclinical data. They certainly do not rise to the level of providing a clear standard for regulatory approval, though perhaps it’s a reasonable place to start.

The most obvious counterargument here is one that the authors curiously don’t pick up on at all: if we had the ability to accurately (or even semiaccurately) predict efficacy preclinically, pharma sponsors would already be doing it. The comment notes: “More-thorough assessments of clinical potential before trials begin could lower failure rates and drug-development costs.” And it’s hard not to agree: every pharmaceutical company would love to have even an incrementally-better sense of whether their early pipeline drugs will be shown to work as hoped.

The authors note

Commercial interests cannot be trusted to ensure that human trials are launched only when the case for clinical potential is robust. We believe that many FIH studies are launched on the basis of flimsy, underscrutinized evidence.

However, they do not produce any evidence that industry is in any way deliberately underperforming their preclinical work, merely that preclinical efficacy is often difficult to reproduce and is poorly correlated with drug performance in humans.

Pharmaceutical companies have many times more candidate compounds than they can possibly afford to put into clinical trials. Figuring out how to lower failure rates – or at least the total cost of failure - is a prominent industry obsession, and efficacy remains the largest source of late-stage trial failure. This quest to “fail faster” has resulted in larger and more expensive phase 2 trials, and even to increased efficacy testing in some phase 1 trials. And we do this not because of regulatory pressure, but because of hopes that these efforts will save overall costs. So it seems beyond probable that companies would immediately invest more in preclinical efficacy testing, if such testing could be shown to have any real predictive power. But generally speaking, it does not.

As a general rule, we don’t need regulations that are firmly aligned with market incentives, we need regulations if and when we think those incentives might run counter to the general good. In this case, there are already incredibly strong market incentives to improve preclinical assessments. Where companies have attempted to do something with limited success, it would seem quixotic to think that regulatory fiat will accomplish more.

(One further point. The authors try to link the need for preclinical efficacy testing to the 2016 Bial tragedy. This seems incredibly tenuous: the authors speculate that perhaps trial participants would not have been harmed and killed if Bial had been required to produce more evidence of BIA102474’s clinical efficacy before embarking on their phase 1 trials. But that would have been entirely coincidental in this case: if the drug had in fact more evidence of therapeutic promise, the tragedy still would have happened, because it had nothing at all to do with the drug’s efficacy.

This is to some extent a minor nitpick, since the argument in favor of earlier efficacy testing does not depend on a link to Bial. However, I bring it up because a) the authors dedicate the first four paragraphs of their comment to the link, and b) there appears to be a minor trend of using the death and injuries of that trial to justify an array of otherwise-unrelated initiatives. This seems like a trend we should discourage.)

[Update 2/23: I posted this last night, not realizing that only a few hours earlier, John LaMattina had published on this same article. His take is similar to mine, in that he is suspicious of the idea that pharmaceutical companies would knowingly push ineffective drugs up their pipeline.]

Kimmelman, J., & Federico, C. (2017). Consider drug efficacy before first-in-human trials Nature, 542 (7639), 25-27 DOI: 10.1038/542025a

As a leader who has committed much of his career to improving healthcare — an industry that holds millions of people’s lives in its hands — I took from this terrifying incident a new guiding principle. Healthcare needs to pursue a zero-failure rate.

The post What My Daughter’s Harrowing Alaska Airlines Flight Taught Me About Healthcare appeared first on MedCity News.

During a panel discussion at the Behavioral Health Tech conference, experts shared the promise psychedelic medicines hold for mental health and why employers may want to consider offering them as a workplace benefit.

The post 4 Things Employers Should Know About Psychedelic Medicines appeared first on MedCity News.

The vast majority of older adults want to age at home. To support that goal, doctors should encourage them to consider their care options — long before they need assistance.

The post Through Early Discussions About Elder Care, Doctors Can Empower Seniors to Age in Place appeared first on MedCity News.

Many companies are entering the digital youth mental health space, but it’s important to know which ones are effective, according to a panel of investors at the Behavioral Health Tech conference.

The post Measuring Impact in Digital Youth Mental Health: What Investors Look For appeared first on MedCity News.

In 2018, opioid overdoses in the United States caused one death every 11 minutes, resulting in nearly 47,000 fatalities. The most effective treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD) are three medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA): methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone.

To mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we speak to inspiring Singaporeans about their journey in battling and overcoming cancer.  Warda Ismail gets anxious about things easily, especially when it comes to her health.  So much so that her doctor once told her that she is a "borderline hypochondriac", she shared with AsiaOne in an interview.  For the uninitiated, hypochondria is a condition where a person is excessively and unduly worried about having a serious illness. To keep her mind at ease, the 44-year-old preschool educator has the habit of going for regular medical checkups.  Though she was vigilant, her worst nightmare came true — she was diagnosed with breast cancer on May 8 this year.  And in the midst of her recovery journey, she got more terrible news — her mother, who had been caring for her, was diagnosed with stage-three gall bladder cancer.  Despite the string of unfortunate events, Warda persevered and tried to have a more positive outlook on life and her health. 

Singapore's food culture is legendary, with staples such as chicken rice, bak chor mee, laksa, and roti prata feeding generations of locals and visitors alike. But there's one thing they all have in common — carbs! In carb-crazy Singapore, sticking to a keto diet might seem like a gone case and borderline sacrilegious, but trust me, it's doable. I've been through it, and I'm here to share my tips on how you can enjoy our local food scene while staying keto. What is keto? In case you blur about what a ketogenic (keto) diet is, it's all about cutting carbs and eating more fat. Yup, you read that right — more fat. Sounds shiok, right? The goal is to push your body into ketosis, where instead of burning carbs for energy, it burns fat. Hello, weight loss! Beyond that, keto helps you avoid those pesky post-meal sugar crashes — you know, the ones that make want to toh after a heavy meal. My keto experience I first tried keto as a teen, thinking it was just about cutting out rice, bread, and noodles. Wrong! Keto is stricter than that. To stay in ketosis, you've got to limit your carbs to just 20-50g a day.

NEW YORK — McDonald's on Sunday (Oct 27) ruled out beef patties as a source of the E. coli outbreak linked to Quarter Pounder hamburgers, which has killed at least one person and sickened nearly 75 others. "We remain very confident that any contaminated product related to this outbreak has been removed from our supply chain and is out of all McDonald's restaurants," the fast-food chain's chief supply chain officer Cesar Pina said in a statement. The Colorado Department of Agriculture said that all subsamples from multiple lots of McDonald's brand fresh and frozen beef patties had tested negative for E. coli, adding that it had completed beef testing and does not anticipate receiving further samples. McDonald's said it would resume distribution of fresh supplies of the Quarter Pounder and that it is expected to be available in all restaurants in the coming week, according to the statement.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday that slivered onions served on McDonald's, opens new tab Quarter Pounder hamburgers and other menu items were the likely source of an E. coli outbreak that sickened 90 people. The outbreak linked to Quarter Pounder was first reported on Oct 22, and slivered onions were suspected to be the source of the infections. The US Food and Drug Administration and the company have confirmed that Taylor Farms was the supplier for the affected locations, and it has since recalled several batches of yellow onions produced in a Colorado facility. The FDA on Wednesday said it had initiated inspections at a Taylor Farms processing center in Colorado, a state where 29 people have fallen ill due to the outbreak. An onion grower of interest in Washington state is also being investigated, the FDA added. The CDC said the number of infected people has risen by 15 people from 75 and 27 persons have been hospitalised due to the illness, which has already killed one person.

South Korean actor Song Jae-rim died yesterday (Nov 12) at the age of 39. The Seongdong Police Station in Seoul confirmed that he was found deceased in his apartment at around 12.30pm. According to media reports, a friend whom he was supposed to meet for lunch had visited his home and reported the death. A two-page letter was reportedly found at the scene but the cause of death has not been confirmed. A police official, however, stated that there are "no signs of foul play". His wake was held at Yeouido St. Mary’s Hospital Funeral Hall at 5.30pm yesterday. His funeral will be held tomorrow at Seoul City Crematorium. Jae-rim gained popularity after starring in the 2012 drama The Moon Embracing the Sun and the 2014 reality series We Got Married. This year, he starred in two dramas — My Military Valentine and Queen Woo. Following news of his death, comedian Hong Seok-cheon and other celebrities posted tributes to Jae-rim on social media.

SEOUL - South Korea's military said it will hold a three-day joint exercise with the United States and Japan starting on Wednesday (Nov 13), featuring fighter jets and marine patrol aircraft as well as the US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington. The Freedom Edge exercise is a response to what the South Korean military said were threats from North Korea, which recently conducted an intercontinental ballistic missile test, drawing condemnation from Seoul, Tokyo and Washington. It also comes as the US State Department said North Korean troops have started engaging in combat operations in Russia's war with Ukraine. The exercise will include South Korean and Japanese fighter jets and maritime patrol aircraft, as well as the USS George Washington, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement. The trilateral exercise follows a first round held earlier this year after the leaders of the three countries agreed at a summit in 2023 to hold annual training drills. Pyongyang has long condemned joint drills between South Korea and the United States, calling them a rehearsal for invasion.

SINGAPORE – The police are investigating deepfake nude photos of Singapore Sports School (SSP) students that were created and spread by other students. In response to queries from The Straits Times, school principal Ong Kim Soon said SSP is “aware of the incident involving the creation and sharing of deepfake photos by our student-athletes”. “The school does not condone such harmful behaviour,” he said, adding that it has launched an investigation and lodged a police report. The police, in response to queries from ST, confirmed that a report was lodged and investigations are ongoing. A reader who identified himself as a parent of a victim had alerted ST in an e-mail on Nov 12 about the deepfake nude images that were being circulated. “Many parents of affected female students in Singapore Sports School are making police reports about deepfake nude photos of their daughters generated by male students from the school,” the parent said. When contacted, the parent said that female teachers were also targeted, and that the school has offered affected students counselling.

SINGAPORE — Pupils who sat the PSLE will receive their results from 11am on Nov 20. The Education Ministry and Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board, in a joint statement on Nov 13, said arrangements have been made for pupils to collect their results. Pupils will get details on collection arrangements from their schools, it added. Those who are unable to collect their results from school in person can appoint someone to do so on their behalf on Nov 22. Eligible pupils will receive the Secondary 1 (S1) Option Form to select secondary schools with their PSLE results. Pupils are required to use their unique S1 personal identification number found on the top-right hand corner of the form to log in to the S1 Internet System to submit their school choices from 11.30am on Nov 20 to 3pm on Nov 26. Parents who need help with the online submission can contact the primary school before 3pm on Nov 26. Posting results will be released between Dec 18 and Dec 20 through SMS, the statement said. This information can also be accessed through the S1 Internet System or at the pupil's primary school.

JAKARTA — Indonesia said on Monday (Nov 11) it does not recognise China's claims over the South China Sea despite signing a joint maritime development deal with Beijing, as some analysts warned the agreement risked compromising the country's sovereign rights. Beijing has long clashed with its Southeast Asian neighbours over territory in the South China Sea, which it claims sovereignty over in almost its entirety via a "nine-dash line" on its maps that cuts into the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of several countries. Joint agreements with China in the strategic waterway have for years been sensitive, with some claimant states wary of entering into deals they fear could be interpreted as legitimising Beijing's vast claims. An arbitral tribunal in 2016 said the Chinese claim, based on its old maps, has no basis under international law, a decision China refuses to recognise. A joint statement issued at the weekend during Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto's visit to Beijing mentioned the two countries had "reached important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims".

LAHORE — Pakistan's Punjab province banned most outdoor activities and ordered shops, markets and malls in some areas to close early from Monday (Nov 11) to curb illnesses caused by intense air pollution. The province has closed educational institutions and public spaces like parks and zoos until Nov. 17 in places including Lahore, the world's most polluted city in terms of air quality, according to Swiss group IQAir's live ratings. The districts of Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad and Gujranwala have seen an unprecedented rise in patients with respiratory diseases, eye and throat irritation, and pink eye disease, the Punjab government said in an order issued late on Sunday. The new restrictions will also remain in force until Nov. 17. "The spread of conjunctivitis/ pink eye disease due to bacterial or viral infection, smoke, dust or chemical exposure is posing a serious and imminent threat to public health," the Punjab government said.

SEOUL — South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol recently began practising golf, for the first time in eight years, in preparation for future meetings with US President-elect Donald Trump, Yoon's office confirmed on Tuesday (Nov 12). South Korean media said Yoon visited a golf course on Saturday for a sport his office said he had last played in 2016. "A lot of people close to President Trump... (told me) President Yoon and Trump will have good chemistry," Yoon told a press conference on Thursday, after congratulating Trump by telephone on his win. Former Trump administration officials and influential Republicans had offered to help build ties with the incoming president, he added. Analysts said Yoon may seek to find a way to capitalise on a personal friendship with Trump to advance Seoul's interests as Trump's "America First" foreign policy plans and his unpredictable style play out in his second term. South Korean companies rely heavily on trade with the United States, and during Trump's first term, the countries clashed over cost-sharing for the roughly 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War.

CANBERRA — China is putting ever-greater pressure on the Philippines to cede its sovereign rights in the South China Sea, Secretary of National Defence Gilberto Teodoro said on Nov 12 after a meeting with his Australian counterpart in Canberra. "What we see is an increasing demand by Beijing for us to concede our sovereign rights in the area," he said, adding that the Philippines was a "victim of Chinese aggression". China and the Philippines have sparred repeatedly this year over disputed areas of the South China Sea, including the Scarborough Shoal, one of Asia's most contested features. Teodoro's meeting with his Australian counterpart Richard Marles, their fifth since August 2023, reflects growing security ties between the countries, both of whom have expressed concern about Chinese activity in areas of the South China Sea claimed by the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations. The two nations signed a strategic partnership in September 2023 and held their first joint sea and air patrols in the South China Sea several months later. The Philippines also joined war games in Australia this year for the first time.

ISLAMABAD — The International Monetary Fund's Pakistan mission chief Nathan Porter on Tuesday (Nov 12) opened unusual talks with Pakistan over a US$7 billion (S$9.4 billion) bailout approved by its board in September, the finance ministry and sources said. The unscheduled visit of the IMF mission and talks beginning with meeting the country's finance team are too early for first review of the IMF's Extended Fund Facility (EFF), which is due in the first quarter of 2025. The chiefs of Pakistan's central bank and federal board of revenue also attended the meeting besides other officials from both the sides, the statement said. The ministry and the IMF have not officially released details of the visit. Sources in the finance ministry said the Nov 11-15 visit will discuss recent developments and programme performance to date, adding the mission was not part of the first review. The sources declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak with the media. Pakistan has been struggling with boom-and-bust economic cycles for decades, leading to 23 IMF bailouts since 1958.

Feb 28, 2023

Policymakers need to act now and place child welfare professionals, not law enforcement actors, at the border to effectively screen and interview migrant children. Information sharing practices need to be improved, with a movement away from paper documents that can easily get lost to an approach that is digital, secure, and accessible by the child, their guardian, their lawyer, and their doctor. Further, the enforcement processing facilities need to undergo an immediate infrastructural transformation with the addition of new design features that are necessary and sensitive to the majority demographic that are held within facilities—children and families.

These actions are doable and require no legislative action. Migrant children deserve decisive action to ensure that their health, safety, and well-being is not jeopardized as they seek refuge in the United States.

Aug 1, 2023

Using the private journals of commission secretaries Henry Marie Brackenridge and Dr. William Baldwin, as well as Captain Sinclair, this chapter will explore the establishment of American naval identity through its diplomatic experiences in South America. It will also exhibit the role of the U.S. Navy in a proto framework of the Monroe Doctrine.

Mar 12, 2024

After a century of rebellion, South America experienced a rapid decline in revolts in the early 1900s. Historical narratives and an analysis of a comprehensive new dataset show that the decrease stemmed in large part from the expansion and professionalization of the region’s militaries, which were driven by an export boom and the threat of interstate conflict. 

As the November 2008 Mumbai attack has shown, LeT is capable of launching attacks that can directly undermine Pakistan,s relations with its neighbors and regional stability generally.

In Ambassador Mulford's January 7 farewell call on External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the Minister said he understood the seriousness of the error in releasing sensitive intelligence from the Mumbai terrorism investigations and pledged that the Ministry would not further disseminate that information.

During recent trips to southern Punjab, Principal Officer was repeatedly told that a sophisticated jihadi recruitment network had been developed in the Multan, Bahawalpur, and Dera Ghazi Khan Divisions.