Novo Nordisk Obesity Drug Wins FDA Panel Support

Last week Thursday, an FDA advisory panel recommended the approval of Novo Nordisk’s injectable drug liraglutide for the treatment of obesity.

Liraglutide

National Public Health Week: Start Here

This week is National Public Health Week (NPHW). During the first full week of April every year, National Public Health Week recognizes the contributions of public health and highlights issues that are important to improving our nation. The theme for National Public Health Week (NPHW) 2014 — Public Health: Start Here – will draw the nation’s attention to topics including school nutrition, disaster preparedness, prevention, food safety and community health.

National Public Health Week 2014

Pluripotent Stem Cells and the Nobel Prize for Medicine

nobel medal in medicineThe 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced earlier this week. The prize was awarded to two scientists for their work on reprogramming mature cells to become pluripotent.

The prize of 10-million-Swedish-krona (US$1.5-million) was divided, one half jointly to Sir John B. Gurdon, age 79, at the Gurdon Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom, and Shinya Yamanaka, age 50, at Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan and the Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, California, USA, for the discovery that mature, specialized cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body.

Tracking Blood Glucose? There’s an App (and Hardware) for That

Diabetics often need to test blood glucose levels several times a day in order to make appropriate decisions about nutrition and, in the case of type 1 diabetics, insulin administration. Medisana, a German company, has developed hardware and an app that allow diabetics to test — and keep track of — blood glucose on an iPhone or iPad. The hardware, called the GlucoDock, connects to an Apple mobile device. The user puts a very small drop of blood on a test strip, and inserts it into the device. GlucoDock, via the VitaDock software, measures blood sugar and records the measurement for personal data tracking purposes.

GlucoDock

New Strategic NIH Plan to Fight Diabetes

A new strategic plan to guide diabetes-related research over the next decade was announced recently by the National Institutes of Health. The plan, developed by a federal work group led by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), identifies research opportunities with the greatest potential to benefit the millions of Americans who are living with or at risk for diabetes and its complications.