Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, L.L.C. (J&JPRD) announced that it has submitted a New Drug Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for rivaroxaban, an investigational, oral, once-daily anticoagulant for the prevention of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) in patients undergoing hip or knee replacement surgery. In 2005, J&JPRD entered into an agreement with Bayer HealthCare AG to jointly develop rivaroxaban.

GE Healthcare, a unit of the General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), announced positive results from a Phase I clinical trial of GE-067, a [18F]-labeled PET diagnostic imaging agent being developed by the company to assist in the detection of brain beta-amyloid.

Bayer is pleased to announce that today the European Medicines Agency’s (EMEA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) proposed a labeling change for oral moxifloxacin for the treatment of Acute Exacerbations of Chronic Bronchitis (AECB), Acute Bacterial Sinusitis (ABS) and Community Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) in line with official European clinical guidelines.

PhiloGene, Inc. announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug designation to VEGFb for the treatment of patients with advanced melanoma. This approval is for a larger subset of melanoma patients than was requested, and includes melanoma in stages IIb through IV.

Outdoor cooking season is at its peak, and now there are even more reasons to marinade meats before grilling. New research published in the Journal of Food Science suggests that marinating meats may decrease the cancer-forming compounds called heterocyclic amines (HCA), which are produced during grilling, by over 70 percent. Researchers from Kansas State University tested three commercial spice-containing marinade blends (Caribbean, southwest, and herb) on round beef steaks.

The Same Dose of Anthracycline Is Not Safe for Everyone Not all patients can tolerate the currently recommended cumulative dose of epirubicin. New models can help physicians calculate the epirubicin dose associated with a 5 percent risk of cardiotoxicity for individual patients. Oncologists frequently use anthracyclines, including epirubicin and doxorubicin, to treat breast cancer patients.

A new drug has been shown to improve the brain function of people with early stage Alzheimer’s disease and reduce a key protein associated with the disease in the spinal fluid, in a small study published in the journal Lancet Neurology and presented at the 2008 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease. The drug, known as PBT2, counteracts the production and build-up of a protein called amyloid-beta that occurs in Alzheimer’s disease.

Children born with hydrocephalus, or “water on the brain” must have shunts implanted to drain the fluid away from the brain to reduce harmful pressure. While shunts do their job well, the rate of shunt infection in children is very high for a variety of reasons, which requires putting the child through another surgery to replace the shunt, bringing with it more hospital time, potential additional neurological complications and an increased risk of death.

Doctors at Melbourne Internal Medical Associates (MIMA) Cancer Center have become the first in Florida to treat cancer using RapidArc™ radiotherapy technology from Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR). They are also the first in the world to use this technology to deliver stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) in the treatment of soft tissue carcinoma.

Whether X-rays for CT scans, sound waves for ultrasound, magnetic fields for MRI, or antimatter for PET scans, the “stuff” of physics has revolutionized the practice of medicine. In the last half century, the field of medical physics has emerged thanks to the efforts of scientists who develop these technologies and bring them to the clinic. Almost all the hospitals in the United States today benefit from the work of medical physicists.