February 21 Week in Review

This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings, and more. Our Week in Review is a can't miss for the busy pharmacy professional.

Nicole Grassano: Hello and welcome to the Pharmacy Times News Network. I’m Nicole Grassano your host for our Pharmacy Week in Review.

Roosevelt University’s College of Pharmacy is helping to highlight a shift in HIV/AIDS care through its updated training program, Pharmacy Times reported. The university is among 24 programs in the Midwest that will systematically integrate for the first time into existing coursework within the National Curriculum e-learning platform. Using an expertise in infectious diseases, the course ties in the standard curriculum of HIV, which covers the pathophysiology and treatment of myriad comorbid conditions, and supplements it with modernized content. In addition to the university’s course, an evaluation of the HIV training is being done at integration sites in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, and Ohio.

Immunological imprinting may be the key to understanding why the same strain of flu virus affects people with various degrees of severity, Contemporary Clinic reported. Researchers analyzed health records in order to understand whether immunological imprinting could explain people’s response to flu strains already circulating and how severely the season flu affect people in different age groups. The records revealed that people first exposed to H1N1 during childhood were less likely to be hospitalized if they contracted H1N1 again in later life, compared with patients who were first exposed to H3N2. While there is still work to be done to understand the lack of transferable immune response, the researchers hope their findings could help predict which age groups might be most severely infected during future flu seasons.

A team of chemical engineers has developed a new way to produce medicines and chemicals on demand and preserve them using portable “biofactories” embedded in water-based gels called hydrogels, Specialty Pharmacy Times reported. The approach could aid individuals in remote villages or on military missions, where the absence of pharmacies may make it difficult to access critical medicines or other small-molecule compounds. This is the first hydrogel-based system to organize both individual microbes and multiple organisms for the production of high-value chemical feedstocks used for processes such as pharamceuticals. This platform has the added benefit of multitasking, keeping different types of cells separated while they grow and preventing cells from attacking one another.

Pharmacists may get more questions about Entresto, if patients have seen a recent commercial for the prescription medication. In the spot, called “The Beat Goes On: Airport,” the narrator explains that Entresto was proven superior vs. enalapril at helping people with chronic heart failure stay alive and out of the hospital. According to the commercial, Entresto is a heart failure medicine prescribed by most cardiologists intended to improve the heart’s ability to pump blood through the body for adults with chronic heart failure.

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Thanks for watching our Pharmacy Week in Review. I’m Nicole Grassano at the Pharmacy Times News Network.