Clinical Trial of a Cancer patient

I am writing a little bit about Clinical trials on cancer patients. These trials are performed to figure out the best way to treat cancer. In the early phase of clinical trials, patients that are diagnosed with cancer have to sign a treaty that they are participating in the clinical trial to help with their pain. The pain from the cancer is severe. Patient will be told about the medication , the side effects , and the potential benefits. Then patient will sign the consent form. In this trial they have to  keep a diary on how much pain is controlled  and how much different doses of the medicine took. The patient will receive a box of pain meds and it will contains pills of different strengths. Then 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes after medication  the pain level  has to be note down each time. If the pain improves and is well controlled then the dose have to be taken when it is needed. If this doen’t work then an increased dose has to be given next time. This will figure out the best way to treat cancer pain. In first phase of pain medication trial a very low dose will be given which will show effect or not, depends. Now to get relief from pain the dose has to be increased may be four times and that gives a relief from pain but with sleep. So controlling  most of the pain that has to be done with lowering the dose and without falling asleep. If the pain for the cancer become worse so the highest dose can also be given.

Bashah Javed

Faculty of Bioinformatics

BII, Noida.

Novartis wants U.K. to quash off-label Avastin use

Novartis is taking up arms against British eye doctors who use Roche's Avastin. Novartis markets Lucentis, a much pricier treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration. Lucentis is licensed for that use. It's recommended for that use by the U.K.'s cost-effectiveness gatekeepers. Avastin is not.

Some local National Health Service operations are repackaging Avastin, a cancer drug that's actually related to Lucentis, into syringes for eye use. While quite expensive as a cancer treatment, at such tiny doses, Avastin costs a tiny fraction of Lucentis' price. Novartis is asking a U.K. court to review NHS reimbursements for off-label Avastin treatment.

The U.K. debate mirrors another in the U.S., where repackaged Avastin has been broadly used by eye doctors. Recent head-to-head study data suggested that Avastin was as effective at treating wet AMD as Lucentis, but the cheaper drug presented a higher risk of side effects. The off-label Avastin use also got some negative publicity last year after several clusters of eye infections, some of which led to vision loss, were linked to the drug.

Novartis is using Avastin's side-effects risks to bolster its case for Lucentis. "It is unacceptable to put the safety of patients at risk through the widespread use of an unlicensed treatment when a licensed medicine is available," Novartis said in a statement. "It undermines the regulatory process that was introduced to safeguard patients."

The local NHS operations, however, say that Avastin is safe, the BBC reports. "Avastin is internationally recognized as an effective treatment for AMD, and, for example, over 50% of AMD patients in the United States are treated with Avastin," officials said.

With its top-seller Diovan facing generic competition, Novartis is leaning on newer products such as Lucentis to take up the slack. As Reuters points out, the eye drug's sales jumped by 30% in the first quarter, to $567 million.

Yash shrivastava

Marketing Executive

BII

A Successful Presentation of BII for Research collaboration with Dr.K.N.Modi institute

A big day just passed for BII, but had left its impressions; 4-MAY-2012 was very special to everyone in BII, what was so special in it? Specialty was the Research collaboration proposal between two institutes. Now not making you wait I will tell you we have got very special guests in our premises, Dr. K.N.Modi Institute of Pharmaceuticals Education & Research represented by their faculties & students have come for a visit.

Guests have arrived at 1200 Hrs, we welcomed them with open arms. As it was a sunny day, we arranged refreshments before the commencement of any proceedings of the day. Round 1230 Hrs. our COO Mr. Anshul Gupta & Technical Head Mr. Ranjan Kumar expressed the warm welcome on the behalf of BII.  Now we took off for the technical part of the day; first we had “Cheminformatics session” took by our Bioinformatics faculty Mr. Bashah Javed which last for one hour. The guests were taking every bit of information from the presentation. After it, we moved to the Lunch break for all our guests and students.

Post lunch was even more exciting for all, as it had got demonstrations in it. We divided the students from Dr. KN. Modi into two batches. First batch took the demonstration of Drug Designing & analyzing software V-Life on the other hand second batch was on an exciting ride of instrumentation in the Biotech Lab with Ms Aditi Banerji. Then we swapped the batches for the demonstrations. Meanwhile our Guests faculties were with our Management in Directors’ Chamber on the academics discussions and interestingly on the research collaboration which will take place.

After the insightful technical sessions we all assembled at one place and our Honorable CEO Mr. Shivendra Misra thanked our guests for their eminent presence. And then our Honorable guest Mr. Vijay Sharma (HOD-Pharm. Chem.) expressed his views on the day, then we call for the day.

I would like to express my gratitude to the Director, members of BII, ICIS and our marketing team member Ms. Ritu Pal and Mr. Yash Srivastava for such a wonderful arrangements and presentation of BIII would also like to give special thanks to Ms Aditi Banerji for live demonstration of molecular biology experiments in front of faculty and students and last but not the least for such a tremendous and extra ordinary work of our junior division staff which are essential part of our organization thank you for bringing us at a successful commencement of the day.

 Author

Gourav Kumar

Faculty cum Research Associate

Biotechnology BII