North America

Majority of US consumers would be willing to buy prescription drugs through Amazon

Over 70% of Amazon customers in the United States would be willing to buy prescription drugs through the online retailer, according to the results of a survey carried out by Deutsche Bank. …

Tighter regulations in United States drive opioid sales via ‘cryptomarkets’

The number of opioids sold through online illicit markets has doubled, coinciding with the restriction of one of the most frequently presctibed opioid analgesics in the United States, according to results from a study published in The British Medical Journal.…

Synthetic opioids overtake prescription opioids as leading cause of US overdose deaths

Synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, were implicated in more overdose-related deaths in 2016 than prescription opioids in the United States.…

US FDA panel recommends approval of cannabis-derived drug for the first time

A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expert panel has voted in favour of approving the cannabinoid medication Epidiolex for the treatment of seizures in two rare forms of epilepsy.…

Dealing with medicines misuse in execution by lethal injection

New standards of industry best practice have been established for implementing distribution controls on drugs that could be used for execution…

FDA aims to speed up approvals of generic drugs

The US Food and Drug Administration has published guidance aimed at speeding up approvals of generic drugs.…

Competing drugs to treat opioid addiction equally safe, according to study

Two of the main medicines used for treating opioid addiction are equally safe and effective, according to a new study in The Lancet.…

Replacing cigarettes with vaping could cut early deaths

Researchers modelled a hypothetical scenario where 95% of smokers in the United States switched to e-cigarettes over a 10 year period…

Adalimumab biosimilar exhibits same efficacy and safety for rheumatoid arthritis as originator

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis who switched from adalimumab (Humira) to its biosimilar, adalimumab-adbm (Cyltezo), saw no clinically meaningful difference, according to the results of a 48-week Phase III clinical trial…

Trump formally declares US opioid crisis a ‘public health emergency’

President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, has declared the nation’s opioid crisis a public health emergency, despite saying in August 2017 that he was planning to declare it a national emergency.…