FDA Approves First New Flu Drug In 20 Years (popsci.com) 39
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Science: The Food & Drug Administration just announced that they had approved the aptly-named Xofluza, the first new antiviral drug in two decades, to help alleviate the symptoms of a flu infection. The reason Xofluza got a priority review from the FDA is that it works through a different mechanism than Tamiflu. Both are antivirals, meaning they prevent the replication of the virus, but they work at different stages in that process. First, a quick primer on how viruses infect you: a virus is basically a packet of genetic material that injects itself into a cell and hijacks the cell's normal replication machinery, forcing it to produce millions of copies of the virus. A protein called viral neuraminidase allows those copies to exit the cell and go infect new parts of your body. Most of our effective antivirals are neuraminidase inhibitors -- the virus can still replicate, but it's prevented from escaping.
Xofluza works by preventing the viral replication in the first place. It blocks viral polymerase, an enzyme that helps make copies of the invading genetic material. This doesn't necessarily make it better or more effective -- the FDA notes that early trials suggest it's about as effective as Tamiflu -- but as the FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb pointed out in a press release, "Having more treatment options that work in different ways to attack the virus is important because flu viruses can become resistant to antiviral drugs."
Xofluza works by preventing the viral replication in the first place. It blocks viral polymerase, an enzyme that helps make copies of the invading genetic material. This doesn't necessarily make it better or more effective -- the FDA notes that early trials suggest it's about as effective as Tamiflu -- but as the FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb pointed out in a press release, "Having more treatment options that work in different ways to attack the virus is important because flu viruses can become resistant to antiviral drugs."
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I agree. The only natural cure is more cowbell.
20 Already? (Score:5, Funny)
It's been 20 years already? Goodness, how time flu...
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Another advantage (Score:2)
There is another advantage of having drugs that work on different phases of the pathological process. It is that they can often show synergism when taken together, and such a combination has the potential to become the most effective treatment.
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"synergism"...back to MBA-Land for you, Grasshopper.
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They really ignited the innovation pipeline on this one*. Probably because of they were so laser focused**.
* please don't ignite pipelines, it's usually a bad ting
** lasers aren't focused, they're collimated
Alternative autism. Great. (Score:2)
Low hanging fruit, I know...
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the real truth (Score:1)
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Well sure, but the scientific method precludes going straight for the double treatment, as does the FDA. If it's made by a different drug makes than Tamiflu, then they have no interest in promoting that either. And even if the patent expired on Tamiflu, they probably want to patent the (obvious) combination drug several years down the road rather than give a more effective treatment now. Longer patent dominance.
Because of resistant strains. Might do it though (Score:3)
As the summary says, that might be the best treatment. One reason NOT to do that is that the flu virus changes every year, becoming reistant to the anti-bodies that worked against last year's flu. If you routinely give both drugs, it's likely the fluvirus will adapt to be resistant to both. In some ways, it's better to keep one in reserve as a "secret weapon" that the virus doesn't know about, and only pull it out when needed. "When needed" might be vulnerable people (old, babies, aids patients) and/or when
Prevention (Score:1)
Re: Prevention (Score:1)
Bull shit. It's a virus. Assuming no immunity, once it gets inside it hijacks the cellular programming to make more viri. It's a program. Vitamins won't do fuck-all to stop it. At best, it just help the recovery repair damage after the fact.
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I am genuinely interested if you have an article to share on this. I spent a lot of time last year looking at peer-reviewed scientific literature studying the effect of nutrition on illness prevention and cure, and I don't remember seeing anything about vitamin D and the flu (either for or against). So I didn't even realize this was a thing.
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Next to get FDA approval: GeXuntite.