Journal of the American Medical Association news from FierceBiotech

> While the FDA has been slammed by some drugmakers for its too-conservative approach to drug approval, it may have Read more...

> The argument over the FDA's role in regulating cancer therapies often comes down to one man: Dr. Richard Pazdur, a veteran oncologist and chief of the agency's oncology office. Read more...

> Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners has priced its IPO of 3.4 million shares at $6 per share. Report

> Hollis-Eden Pharma is raising $26 million from the sale of shares. Report

> Medarex and PacMab struck a deal to market …

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On the advice of attorneys, the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association says she won't ban authors who fail to disclose their financial ties to the drug industry, as a ban might spur antitrust suits. A ban "would only encourage that author to send his or her articles to another journal; it cleans our house by messing others," says Catherine DeAngelis, who has been highlighting cases of authors who fail to adhere to JAMA's disclosure rules. Critics who had been …

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In a study published last February in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a group of experts warned women that if they stopped taking their antidepression drugs they seriously raised their risk of relapse. But The Wall Street Journal notes that most of the authors have long-standing financial ties to drug companies that make antidepressants. None of those ties were revealed in the study. The authors and the drug companies say that the ties did not influence …

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New clinical studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association back up Pfizer's claims for the smoking cessation drug varenicline, which will hit the market as Chantix next month. The studies cover the results for 2,000 volunteers and found that 44 percent of the people taking Chantix continued to abstain from smoking after 12 weeks of therapy compared to 30 percent for subjects taking Zyban and 17 percent who took a placebo. Those results will give Chantix considerable …

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A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association concludes that people taking Abbott Laboratories' Humira or Johnson & Johnson's Remicade--both blockbuster meds--face triple the risk of cancer and double the risk of infections. While the chances of getting either cancer or an infection are still small, the study's authors conclude, these anti-TNF antibody drugs still pose threats that people should consider carefully. The drug makers responded by saying that the …

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> NitroMed is raising more than $58 million through the sale of 6.1 million shares in order to launch its first product. Report

> PharmaGap has released the first animal efficacy data for its novel lead drug compound, PhGalpha1, a selective inhibitor of Protein Kinase C-alpha. …

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Novo Nordisk's clotting drug NovoSeven has been linked to a host of serious side effects, including deaths, strokes and heart attacks. The drug was approved by the FDA in 1999 to stop the bleeding of hemophiliacs. But physicians have also been using the drug--which costs $7,500 a dose--to treat cerebral hemorrhages. The side effects were largely concentrated among the cases involving off-label drug uses. The authors of the report at the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research …

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A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association confirms that FluMist has proved safe among healthy people from the ages of 5 to 49. FluMist is a live, attenuated influenza vaccine administered as a nasal spray. Though it was approved two years ago, it has made only slow gains in the market--even during the flu vaccine shortage last year. But researchers now have 2.5 million instances where people have taken FluMist, allowing the new safety study to look for …

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