pharmacology

An experimental drug called mavoglurant can reduce the consumption of both cocaine and alcohol in people with cocaine use disorder, according to the results of a phase 2 clinical trial with 68 participants. Although trials with more participants are needed, the results suggest that this drug should be studied further. The findings, in which Spanish teams have participated, are published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

EMA’s human medicines committee has recommended not authorising the marketing of Kisunla (donanemab), a drug intended for the treatment of early-stage Alzheimer's disease. The committee considered that the benefits of this drug were not great enough to outweigh the risk of potentially fatal events. In recent years, several patients have died due to microbleeds in the brain.

On Tuesday the European Commission presented the draft of its new Critical Medicines Act. Its objective is to address the serious shortage of medicines and healthcare products, reduce external dependence on critical medicines and ingredients — especially from Asia — and guarantee the supply of affordable medicines in the European Union.

An international team has found that aspirin is capable of reducing the appearance of metastasis in mice, by enabling the activation of T lymphocytes capable of recognising tumour cells. The research showed that several different mouse cancer models — including breast cancer, colon cancer and melanoma — treated with aspirin showed a lower rate of metastasis in other organs, such as the lungs and liver, compared to untreated mice. According to the authors, who publish the results in the journal Nature, ‘the finding paves the way for the use of more effective anti-metastatic immunotherapies’.

People with dementia who are prescribed a specific type of antidepressant experience a faster cognitive decline than people who do not use these drugs, according to a study published in BMC Medicine. In particular, prescriptions for higher doses of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a type of antidepressant, were associated with a higher risk of severe dementia, fractures and mortality. The analysis includes data from more than 18,000 patients from a Swedish database between 2007 and 2018.

A review of 14 studies and data from more than 130 million patients has found an association between the use of drugs such as anti-inflammatory drugs, antibiotics and vaccines and a reduced risk of dementia. The authors recall that “the fact that a particular drug is associated with an altered risk of dementia does not necessarily mean that it causes or helps against it.” However, “pooling these huge health data sets provides a source of evidence that can help us decide which drugs to try first.” The research is published in the journal Alzheimer's and Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions. 

The use of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), used to treat diabetes and obesity, may be associated with a wide range of health effects, both positive - such as a reduced risk of cardiometabolic disorders - and negative - an increased risk of gastrointestinal conditions or hypertension. These are the conclusions of an observational study published in Nature Medicine. The findings are based on analysis of data from 2.4 million participants.

Less than four months after the European Medicines Agency recommended in July not to grant marketing authorisation for Leqembi™ (lecanemab) for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, the EMA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has reassessed the available evidence to conclude that the benefits outweigh the risks.

Despite considerable advances in the discovery and development of new cancer drugs, there are significant disparities in both the availability and timeliness of these medicines around the world, with the poorest countries being left out, according to an analysis published in the journal BMJ Global Health. According to the study, few new cancer drugs were launched in low- and lower-middle-income countries, and the gap between rich and poor countries widened over the three decades between 1990 and 2022.

The U.S. FDA has approved a new drug—called Cobenfy—to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia. Unlike traditional treatments, which are based on blocking the effects of dopamine, its mechanism of action simulates the effects of another neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. It is the first drug to be approved with a different mechanism of action in over 70 years.