A medication is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and relies on the science of pharmacology for continual advancement and on pharmacy for appropriate management.
The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients, with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate the symptoms. Pharmaceutical companies may deal in generic or brand medications and medical devices. They are subject to a variety of laws and regulations that govern the patenting, testing, safety, efficacy and marketing of drugs.
Dextropropoxyphene is an analgesic in the opioid category, patented in 1955 and manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company. It is an optical isomer of levopropoxyphene. It is intended to treat mild pain and also has antitussive and local anaesthetic effects. The drug has been taken off the market in Europe and the US due to concerns of fatal overdoses and heart arrhythmias. Its onset of analgesia is said to be 20–30 minutes and peak effects are seen about 1.5–2.0 hours after oral administration.
Pharmacovigilance, also known as drug safety, is the pharmacological science relating to the collection, detection, assessment, monitoring, and prevention of adverse effects with pharmaceutical products. The etymological roots for the word "pharmacovigilance" are: pharmakon and vigilare. As such, pharmacovigilance heavily focuses on adverse drug reactions, or ADRs, which are defined as any response to a drug which is noxious and unintended, including lack of efficacy. Medication errors such as overdose, and misuse and abuse of a drug as well as drug exposure during pregnancy and breastfeeding, are also of interest, even without an adverse event, because they may result in an adverse drug reaction.
Eszopiclone, sold under the brand-name Lunesta among others, is a medication used in the treatment of insomnia. Evidence supports some benefit up to six months. The degree of effectiveness is slight to moderate. It is taken by mouth.
Nonbenzodiazepines are a class of psychoactive drugs that are very benzodiazepine-like in nature. Nonbenzodiazepine pharmacodynamics are almost entirely the same as benzodiazepine drugs and therefore employ similar benefits, side-effects, and risks. However, nonbenzodiazepines have dissimilar or entirely different chemical structures and are therefore unrelated to benzodiazepines on a molecular level.
In the United States, a boxed warning is a type of warning that appears on the package insert for certain prescription drugs, so called because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration specifies that it is formatted with a 'box' or border around the text. The FDA can require a pharmaceutical company to place a boxed warning on the labeling of a prescription drug, or in literature describing it. It is the strongest warning that the FDA requires, and signifies that medical studies indicate that the drug carries a significant risk of serious or even life-threatening adverse effects.
Gemtuzumab ozogamicin, sold under the brand name Mylotarg, is an antibody-drug conjugate that is used to treat acute myeloid leukemia.
Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a biotechnology firm based in Dundee, Scotland, and Short Hills, New Jersey, developing cancer drugs and treatments. Cyclacel was founded in 1996 by David Lane, Merlin Ventures and Cancer Research Campaign Technology with the University of Dundee and the University of Glasgow.
Lintuzumab (SGN-33) is a humanized monoclonal antibody used in the treatment of cancer. The drug had been developed by Seattle Genetics as a treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a condition which results in the deaths of 9,000 people a year in the United States. Lintuzumab targets the CD33 protein, which is expressed in AML and other myeloproliferative diseases, but does not appear in abundance on normal cells.
Febuxostat, sold under the brand names Uloric among others, is a medication used long-term to treat gout due to high uric acid levels. It is generally recommended only for people who cannot take allopurinol. When initially started, medications such as NSAIDs are often recommended to prevent gout flares. It is taken by mouth.
Lestaurtinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor structurally related to staurosporine. This semisynthetic derivative of the indolocarbazole K252a was investigated by Cephalon as a treatment for various types of cancer. It is an inhibitor of the kinases fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3), Janus kinase 2 (JAK2), tropomyosin receptor kinase (trk) A (TrkA), TrkB and TrkC.
Sapacitabine is a chemotherapeutic drug developed by American biotechnology firm Cyclacel undergoing clinical trials of its effectiveness against leukemia.
Histamine dihydrochloride is a salt of histamine that is used as a drug for the prevention of relapse in patients diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Midostaurin is a multi-targeted protein kinase inhibitor that has been investigated for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and advanced systemic mastocytosis. It is a semi-synthetic derivative of staurosporine, an alkaloid from the bacterium Streptomyces staurosporeus.
The phases of clinical research are the steps in which scientists conduct experiments with a health intervention in an attempt to obtain sufficient evidence for a process which would be useful as a medical treatment. In the case of pharmaceutical study, the phases start with drug design and drug discovery then proceed on to animal testing. If this is successful, they begin the clinical phase of development by testing for safety in a few human subjects and expand to test in many study participants to determine if the treatment is effective.
Vadastuximab talirine or SGN-CD33A is an antibody-drug conjugate or ADC directed to CD33 or Siglec-3 is a transmembrane receptor expressed on cells of myeloid lineage. The trial drug, being developed by Seattle Genetics and currently in clinical trials, is designed for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Seattle Genetics is a biotechnology company focused on developing and commercializing innovative, empowered monoclonal antibody-based therapies for the treatment of cancer. The company, headquartered in Bothell, Washington, is the industry leader in antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs, a technology designed to harness the targeting ability of monoclonal antibodies to deliver cell-killing agents directly to cancer cells. Antibody-drug Conjugates are intended to spare non-targeted cells and thus reduce many of the toxic effects of traditional chemotherapy, while potentially enhancing antitumor activity.
FLAG is an acronym for a chemotherapy regimen used for relapsed and refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The standard FLAG regimen consists of:
- Fludarabine: an antimetabolite that is not active toward AML, but increases formation of an active cytarabine metabolite, ara-CTP, in AML cells;
- High-dose cytarabine : an antimetabolite that has been proven to be the most active toward AML among various cytotoxic drugs in single-drug trials;
- Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF): a glycoprotein that shortens the duration and severity of neutropenia.
Abacavir/dolutegravir/lamivudine is a fixed-dose combination medication for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. It is a combination of three medications with different and complementary mechanisms of action: 600 mg abacavir, 50 mg dolutegravir and 300 mg lamivudine.
