November 2014

(11th November, 2014); Pharma Major Lupin Limited (Lupin) announced that it has received final approval for its Celecoxib Capsules, 50 mg from the United States Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to market a generic version of G.D. Searle LLC’s (a subsidiary of Pfizer Inc.) Celebrex® Capsules 50 mg. Lupin also received tentative approvals for its Celecoxib capsules 100 mg, 200 mg and 400 mg strengths from the FDA.

An experimental drug aimed at treating a common liver disease showed promising results and potential problems in a multicenter clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health. The FLINT study found that people with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) who took obeticholic acid (OCA) had improved liver health during that period, including decreased inflammation and fat in the liver and decreased body weight versus people receiving a placebo. OCA was also associated with increases in itching and total cholesterol.

(11th November, 2014); The explosive organic compound pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) might one day allow pregnant women to protect their daughters from developing high blood pressure (BP) before they’re born, according to an animal study published in the American Heart Association’s journal Hypertension.

(10th November, 2014); All multicellular creatures are descended from single-celled organisms. The leap from unicellularity to multicellularity is possible only if the originally independent cells collaborate. So-called cheating cells that exploit the cooperation of others are considered a major obstacle. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany, together with researchers from New Zealand and the USA, have observed in real time the evolution of simple self-reproducing groups of cells from previously individual cells.