EMA tells countries to prioritise weight loss drugs for patients ‘with greatest need’ A European Medicines Agency steering group has asked member countries to work with marketing authorisation holders to “control and optimise the distribution” of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists.…
Community pharmacies to be commissioned to provide RSV vaccination programme The programme was announced following advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.…
Joint guidance for asthma recommends replacing SABA with corticosteroid inhalers The draft guidance proposes the use of combined inhaled corticosteroid/formoterol inhalers over previously preferred short-acting beta agonists.…
Greener inhaler propellant is therapeutically equivalent to traditional alternatives, study results suggest Study authors reported overall bioequivalence between inhalers that use HFA-152a as a propellant and traditionally used devices with HFA-134a as a propellant.…
Combination treatment significantly increases chance of five-year Alzheimer’s survival, study results show Experts said the large study had found "small but significant effects" of combination treatment with donepezil and memantine in Alzheimer's disease.…
Rapid UTI test wins £8m Longitude Prize on Antimicrobial Resistance The winning test uses a urine sample on a smartphone-sized cartridge to identify the presence of a bacterial infection in 15 minutes and the antibiotic required within 45 minutes.…
Bariatric surgery more effective than GLP-1 agonist weight loss drugs, study finds Weight loss from bariatric surgery was maintained at approximately 25% for up to ten years after surgery, while patients who received GLP-1 receptor agonists regained 50% of the weight lost within one year of stopping treatment.…
Pregabalin prescribing increases by almost 25% since restrictions imposed Exclusive: Almost 670,000 patients in England were prescribed pregabalin when it was first reclassified in 2018/2019, compared with more than 820,000 patients in 2023/2024.…
Stopping antidepressants causes withdrawal symptoms in 15% of patients, meta-analysis finds Researchers estimated one in six to seven people will experience withdrawal symptoms when stopping antidepressants.…
‘Unresolvable conflict’: are links to big tobacco changing inhaler prescribing? The takeover of inhaler company Vectura by tobacco firm Philip Morris International has stirred up debate and controversy, with experts raising questions around whether the NHS is doing enough to make the connection clear to prescribers and patients.…
