The Pfizer Foundation announced a new $5 million grant commitment to initiatives in low- and middle-income countries that provide family planning access and education for women and men at the same time children are routinely vaccinated. These new grants build on The Pfizer Foundation's existing grant program by providing a second round of funding to international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) in five African countries where different barriers exist for women to access family planning services, bringing the total program funding to $11.7 million to date.

Women are more prone to the development of autoimmune diseases. The female hormone estrogen is likely to affect the immune system. A team of scientists from Turku Center for Biotechnology and University of Georgia reported new findings related to the involvement of estrogen hormone receptor in autoimmune diseases.

When scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) applied a chemical found in soybeans to a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), they increased its anticancer properties and reduced its side effects. Findings of the preclinical study of phosphatidylcholine, also called lecithin, appear in the journal Oncology Letters.

The Amgen Foundation and Harvard University today announced plans to launch a free online science education platform uniquely designed to level the playing field for aspiring scientists. The LabXchange platform, which will launch with a focus in biology, will offer digital instruction and virtual lab experiences to high school and college students, enabling them to gain meaningful exposure to the scientific process.

A new anti-cancer drug may be effective against a wider range of cancers than previously thought. Using a mouse model and samples taken from cancer patients, a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has shown that a new class of drugs known as SHP2 inhibitors is also effective against aggressive, hard-to-treat tumors such as lung and pancreatic cancers. Clinical trials currently underway had previously excluded patients with these cancers.

Today, the FDA is opening a docket to solicit feedback on important provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act (“Cures Act”). The Cures Act amended the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to exclude certain medical software functions from the definition of a medical device. Under the Cures Act, Congress excluded specific types of software from FDA regulation, including general wellness software products, electronic patient records and more.

The most commonly consumed vitamin and mineral supplements provide no consistent health benefit or harm, suggests a new study led by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and the University of Toronto. Published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the systematic review of existing data and single randomized control trials published in English from January 2012 to October 2017 found that multivitamins, vitamin D, calcium and vitamin C

Novartis announced today new real world evidence from the CHAMP-HF registry comparing Entresto® (sacubitril/valsartan) patients to patients not taking Entresto.[1] This pre-specified analysis of an interim data cut from the CHAMP-HF registry showed that chronic heart failure (HF) patients with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) taking Entresto reported early, statistically significant improvement in health status, as measured by the KCCQ-12 overall summary score (KCCQ-OS).

Glioblastoma multiforme, a type of brain tumor, is one of the most difficult-to-treat cancers. Only a handful of drugs are approved to treat glioblastoma, and the median life expectancy for patients diagnosed with the disease is less than 15 months. MIT researchers have now devised a new drug-delivering nanoparticle that could offer a better way to treat glioblastoma. The particles, which carry two different drugs, are designed so that they can easily cross the blood-brain barrier and bind directly to tumor cells.

AstraZeneca and MedImmune, its global biologics research and development arm, head to the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago, US, 1-5 June 2018, with an expanded portfolio in Oncology. Having achieved 16 regulatory approvals across major markets (US, EU, Japan and China), AstraZeneca will be sharing its R&D momentum at ASCO with seven “Best of ASCO” presentations and 14 oral presentations from a total of 91 accepted abstracts.