An FDA-approved drug for leukemia improved cognition, motor skills and non-motor function in patients with Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia in a small phase I clinical trial, report researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) in Washington. In addition, the drug, nilotinib (Tasigna® by Novartis), led to statistically significant and encouraging changes in toxic proteins linked to disease progression (biomarkers).

Drugs produced using biotechnology are among the most expensive medicines available. Biosimilars that offer a real alternative are becoming increasingly available on the market. The promise of biosimilars is that, once patent protection has elapsed for established biologics, more patients will be able to access effective and well-tolerated drugs.

A new type of cancer therapy based on seemingly unrelated elements of malaria and cancer is showing promise for development. Kairos Therapeutics, a Vancouver-based biotech company spun-out of The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD), has partnered with VAR2 Pharmaceuticals to advance the technology into clinical trials.

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences have found that the breast cancer drug tamoxifen gives white blood cells a boost, better enabling them to respond to, ensnare and kill bacteria in laboratory experiments. Tamoxifen treatment in mice also enhances clearance of the antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogen MRSA and reduces mortality.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) Watson Health and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE and TASE: TEVA) announced that Teva has been selected as its first Foundational Life Sciences Partner for the Watson Health Cloud. As part of this new strategic partnership, Teva becomes the first global pharmaceutical company to tap the power of the Watson Health Cloud to benefit patients and healthcare providers across geographies.

A new study finds that rising placebo responses may play a part in the increasingly high failure rate for clinical trials of drugs designed to control chronic pain caused by nerve damage. Surprisingly, however, the analysis of clinical trials conducted since 1990 found that the increase in placebo responses occurred only in trials conducted wholly in the U.S.; trials conducted in Europe or Asia showed no changes in placebo responses over that period.

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with one half jointly to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites and the other half to Youyou Tu for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria.