The U.S. spends more per person on prescription drugs than any other nation, and spending on cancer drugs has more than doubled since 2013 to over $60 billion annually, according to the data firm IQVIA. New medications typically cost $90000 to $300000 a year. And those prices have risen much faster than patient survival.

Each year the U.S. approves dozens of new uses for cancer drugs based on early signs that they can shrink or slow the spread of tumors.

A 3D biomaterial scaffold design to slowly release stem cells ensures that implanted stem cells stick around to relieve pain and reverse arthritis in mice knee joints. This reduces the use of stem cells by 90%, thus avoiding the challenge of redness, swelling and scar tissue that can arise from large doses of such stem cells, and potentially opening a path to reversal of osteoarthritis in humans for the first time.

The results were published in the Chemical Engineering Journal on February 25.

There is currently no treatment that can reverse the course of osteoarthritis, and our sole options are to try to relieve pain. Stem cell therapy potentially offers hope and has been shown to alienate the disease, but a ‘goldilocks’ dose of stem cells remains out of reach. Too much of a dose of stem cells and the subject suffers redness, swelling and scar tissue. Too little and the therapy is only successful for a limited period due to gradual cell loss.

“More than 100 malaria vaccine candidates have entered clinical trials in recent decades, but none has shown efficacy greater than 75% – until now.” https://www.futuretimeline.net/images/socialmedia/

Researchers led by the University of Oxford have completed a Phase II trial of R21/Matrix-M, a candidate malaria vaccine, which demonstrated an efficacy of 77% over 12-months of follow-up.

In their findings, posted on SSRN/Preprints with The Lancet, they note that their study is the first to reach the World Health Organization’s goal for a vaccine with at least 75% efficacy by 2030. It represents a substantial improvement over the current most effective malaria vaccine, which has shown just 55% efficacy in trials on African children.

The authors conducted a randomised, controlled, double-blind trial at the Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro (CRUN) / Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Santé (IRSS), in the West African country of Burkina Faso. They recruited 450 participants, aged 5–17 months, from the catchment area of Nanoro, covering 24 villages and a population of 65000 people.