Today, URL Pharma was acquired by Takeda for nearly $800M.  The story here in brief is that for hundreds of years, colchicine was used for the treatment of gout and other conditions; it was an effective drug but had to be used carefully. URL invested in the formulation development and clinical studies required for colchicine, and ultimately received FDA approval in 2009. 

Patients who take a close look at medical science in search of treatments are often appalled by what they discover. On the one hand, there's academic research, a self-contained and self-absorbed universe of its own where data may be internally consistent (on a good day) and robustly reproducible, yet often has little relevance to real-world clinical conditions.

Alice Ndlovu has tuberculosis but, relatively speaking, she is one of the lucky ones. Hers is a strain that responds to the best medicines available, which also happen to be the cheapest. At 28, this single mom knows that without treatment she would likely die, leaving her child to face...

Reviewing "The Myth of The Paperless Office" for the New Yorker in 2002, Malcolm Gladwell argued that if the computer had come first, and paper didn't exist, someone would have had to invent it.  Paper, it turns out, is a lot more useful than we typically appreciate.

Florida recently enacted a law requiring that applicants for welfare take and pass a drug test to qualify for benefits. Should government make such a demand?

Background

About a third of the world’s population, concentrated in poorer regions of the world, may be infected with TB, which generally lies dormant until the carrier’s immunity is impaired by another disease (often HIV infection). Without treatment, about half of the patients with active TB will die. According to WHO...

While it may be harmful and disingenuous to insist upon a single algorithm or best approach to practicing medicine, it could be helpful to at least provide clear guidance so that physicians would know to avoid certain therapeutic approaches.

This study demonstrates the effectiveness of mandated treatment for many drug abusers.