Verdict Email The issues you care about
Medical marvels
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13 Jun
Blockchain in pharma: opportunities in the pharmaceutical supply chain
Blockchain is the digital ledger technology that is sweeping through a number of industries on a wave of hype.
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11 Jun
NHS told to embrace full automation, bedside robots to free up £12.5bn in worker time
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has been urged to embrace full automation, including bedside robots and AI diagnoses, to free up frontline staff time worth up to £12.5bn a year – almost 10% of its annual running cost.
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31 May
Immunotherapy could revolutionise cancer treatment and pharma giants are scrambling to be a part of it
Surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy have long been the go-to for cancer treatment.
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30 May
Can machine learning predict the onset of autism?
The early and accurate diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children is crucial.
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21 May
Organ donations in the US are soaring amid the worsening opioid crisis
In the US, organs are in such high demand that 20 people die every day waiting for a transplant.
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10 May
How the Takeda-Shire deal will change drug development
Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical this week agreed to buy Ireland’s Shire for $65 billion.
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8 May
Takeda’s Shire bid: £46bn bid from Japanese company approved by Shire board
Japan’s Takeda has agreed to buy Dublin-based Shire Pharmaceuticals for £46 billion ($64.42 billion), in what is the sector’s biggest deal since 2000.
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9 Apr
Novartis share price: Swiss pharma giant buys AveXis for its spinal muscular atrophy drug
Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis is buying US gene therapy pioneers AveXis for $8.7 billion, in a bid to boost its leadership in neuroscience treatment.
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22 Mar
A mobile app experiment has suggested the next UK flu pandemic could kill 886,000 people
Scientists have predicted that the next flu pandemic to hit the UK could kill as many as 886,000 people and infect 43 million — about three-quarters of the entire population.
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19 Mar
HSCT study suggests stem cell transplant ‘stunningly’ better than drugs at stopping MS relapses
A major study into haemotopoietic stem cell transplantation treatment for Multiple Sclerosis has found that it is “stunningly” better than drug treatments, according to one of the doctors involved.
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14 Mar
How gene manipulation tech Crispr will transform medicine and agriculture
Jennifer Doudna, inventor of revolutionary gene editing technique Crispr, expects the technology to transform agriculture and medicine.
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14 Mar
Stephen Hawking tributes: ‘We have lost a colossal mind and a wonderful spirit’
Tributes from tech leaders, scientists, and business people have poured in for world renowned theorist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking after he died in his Cambridge home last night.
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28 Feb
High-potency cannabis strains are now the norm in the UK
A scientific study into cannabis strength revealed high-potency varieties of the drug were more dominant in the UK in 2016 than eight or thirteen years previously.
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27 Feb
iPhone maker Apple is eyeing the healthcare market with employee clinics
Apple — the maker of the iPhone and world’s most valuable company — is preparing to take its much anticipated step into the healthcare market with the launch of employee wellness centres.
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16 Feb
Canopy Growth Corp hopes to create medical cannabis 2.0 with new marijuana-based medicines
Canopy Growth Corp, a leading medical marijuana producer, is hoping to change the face of pharmaceuticals as the world begins to relax its laws on cannabis use.
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15 Feb
The life expectancy gap between the rich and poor is widening in the UK
The life expectancy gap between England’s rich and poor has widened, according to a new report.
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12 Feb
AI is exploding into healthcare — here’s how it’s being used
The number of companies using artificial intelligence in healthcare has increased from less than 20 in 2012 to 100 last year, according to GlobalData Healthcare estimates.
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9 Feb
Medopad CEO: We’re planning similar deals beyond China
Medopad — the UK-based healthcare tech startup which last week signed £100m worth of projects and partnerships with a number of Chinese companies — said it plans to replicate that success in other countries around the world.
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5 Feb
AI breakthrough from Google’s DeepMind could help prevent blindness
Google-owned artificial intelligence company DeepMind claims to have trained an algorithm to spot signs of eye disease more effectively than human specialists.
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25 Jan
It’s not all doom and gloom: Bill Gates is feeling confident about the future of healthcare
Billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates had some encouraging words for the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos today.
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18 Jan
The life sciences productivity paradox — new drug launches are one-30th of what they were 40 years ago
The number of medical drugs launched per $1bn of biotech research and development spending has fallen to just 1/30th of what they were 40 years ago, according to a report out today by the British BioIndustry Association and a UK government-backed innovation centre called the Medicines Discovery Catapult.
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14 Dec
A groundbreaking gene therapy is offering hope for a haemophilia cure
A recent UK study has revealed major advances in the treatment of the life-threatening condition haemophilia, leading scientists to anticipate the development of a cure.
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7 Dec
The US is investing in gene drive technology — should we use genetic engineering to eliminate disease?
Emails released this week under freedom of information rules show that the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is investing $100 million in gene drive technology in a bid to deplete numbers of malaria-carrying mosquitos and other pests.
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1 Dec
Technology is improving the lives of people with dementia and Alzheimer’s
It is likely that you know of someone who has suffered or is suffering from dementia.
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30 Nov
Scientists are getting close to a new HIV vaccine after warnings of a European epidemic
Scientists are starting two studies in Africa trialling a new HIV vaccine and a long-acting injectable drug, fuelling hopes that an effective protection against the virus will soon be developed.
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28 Nov
A HIV epidemic is spreading across Europe and the World Health Organisation is trying to fight it
The number of people in Europe newly diagnosed with HIV reached its highest recorded level in 2016, with 160,000 people discovered to have the disease, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
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21 Nov
Canadian drug firm Concordia charged for hiking drug prices up 6,000 percent in 10 years
The Canadian pharmaceutical giant Concordia has been accused of using its market dominance to make the UK’s National Health Service pay millions of pounds above market value for its thyroid drug.
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14 Nov
The US has taken a step closer to making pills digital
This week US regulators approved a pill that can track whether patients have taken their medication – the first of its kind.
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14 Nov
The NHS needs 200,000 new blood donors every year – here’s how it’s using digital to keep up with demand
Have you ever donated blood?
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2 Nov
Robotic surgeons that treat cancer are just the latest med-tech marvels
Modern medicine is increasingly reliant on new technology to develop more efficient and less invasive healthcare.