More must be done to get dementia patients the best drugs available, including loosening regulation to enable terminally ill patients to access clinical trials, the Prime Minister will tell pharmaceutical companies today.
According to The Telegraph, David Cameron will say that the pace of drug development is ‘not good enough’ and will announce new measures, including extending patents to make drug development more profitable, as part of a pledge to eradicate the disease in the next 11 years.
The Telegraph reports Mr Cameron is expected to say: ‘The truth is that dementia now stands alongside cancer as one of the greatest enemies of humanity[…] We first need to tackle head-on the market failure perilously undermining dementia research and drug development.’
A British university has unearthed a potential chink in the armour of antibiotic resistant superbugs, the promising target could now be used to develop drugs with a novel method of action.
The Independent reports that researchers from the University of East Anglia have identified a new way of attacking the cell membrane of gram negative bacteria – a group including E. coliwho have been particularly resistant to conventional treatments.
Lead researcher Professor Changjiang Dong said that the discovery provided ‘the platform for urgently needed new generation drugs’. Research must now begin on clinically relevant organisms.
The number of people regularly taking part in sport hit record levels last year, with 15.6 million over-16s doing at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise at least once a week, The Guardian reports.
The annual Sport England survey shows that 1.7 more adults are engaging in sport than when the survey began in 2005, and the most active region was the Hart district in Hampshire, with 51.2% participating.
However the survey also reflects that there is a pronounced gender gap in activity levels, with 40% of men regularly getting active compared to just 31% of women.
