Letter urges US company Gilead Sciences to ‘shape history’ by providing fair access Former world leaders, celebrities and a Nobel prize-winning scientist who helped discover HIV have written to a leading pharmaceutical company to urge it to make a “gamechanger” HIV medicine available to people living outside wealthy countries. The US company Gilead Sciences has been urged to “shape history” by avoiding a repeat of the “horror and shame” of the early years of the Aids pandemic, when 12 million lives were lost in poorer parts of the world after effective drugs became available, because the medic ..read more

Amid baby boom reports linked to drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic, experts say it would be ‘wise’ to take extra precautions Claims that “skinny jabs” are fuelling an unexpected baby boom have led experts to warn women to pair their use with effective contraception. Medications such as Wegovy and Ozempic, both of which contain semaglutide, have become hugely popular, not least because they can help people lose more than 10% of their body weight ..read more

Obesity prevention is cheaper long-term option, says Cambridge professor, with focus on dietary advice and exercise plans Skinny jabs risk being used as a cop-out by governments to avoid making hard policy choices to prevent obesity, a leading expert has warned. Prof Giles Yeo, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge and expert on obesity and the brain control of food intake, said drugs such as semaglutide – the active ingredient in the weight-loss jab Wegovy – were remarkable and worked for a majority of people ..read more

The former pharma laggard is in a race with Shell to be the first FTSE 100 stock to be valued at £200bn The last time the AstraZeneca chief executive, Pascal Soriot, set long-term sales targets, he was greeted with a chorus of scepticism. It was 2014 and the company was fighting a takeover attempt by Pfizer of the US; Soriot seemed to be engaging in that age-old defence trick of throwing out a large number that he probably would not be around to deliver. A target to boost revenues by three-quarters over nine years looked wildly optimistic – a decade ago, the Anglo-Swedish firm was more laggard ..read more

UK’s biggest drugmaker says it plans to launch 20 major new medicines before the end of the decade Business live – latest updates Britain’s biggest drugmaker, AstraZeneca, has set out a bold ambition to reach $80bn (£63bn) in revenues by 2030 from treatments for cancer, rare diseases and other conditions, by launching 20 major new medicines before the end of the decade. As the company presented its growth plans to shareholders at its labs and corporate headquarters in Cambridge, England, its chief executive, Pascal Soriot, said 12 of the 20 new drugs would have the potential to generate more ..read more

Exclusive: Some pharmacies have turned away families because they have run out of the drug clarithromycin Pharmacists are calling for fresh powers to provide patients with alternative prescriptions as they warned that drugs shortages are hampering their ability to tackle whooping cough. More than 2,700 cases have been reported across England so far in 2024 – more than three times the number recorded in the whole of last year ..read more

Our desires are an essential part of who we are – as I discovered when I lost my appetite for six months Mostly, walking down New York streets in spring sunshine is the cinematic, euphoric ideal of what it is to be alive. It’s the thing I looked forward to for decades. It meant to me, back then as a kid in Ireland, listening to songs about Lexington and 14th Street, freedom: an almost deranged amount of freedom. Sometimes, though, walking down New York streets in spring sunshine is agonising in both a physical and spiritual sense. This may be so, for instance, if you have no health insurance a ..read more

Patients are already dying as wonder drugs lose their effectiveness. International action is urgently needed As apocalyptic horror stories go, it’s up there with the scariest. Yet it’s not fiction writers but top scientists who are warning of how the world could look once superbugs develop resistance to the remaining drugs against them in our hospital pharmacies. Patients will die who can currently be cured; routine surgery will become dangerous or impossible. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – it happens not only with bacteria but also viruses, fungi and parasites – is one of the top ..read more

Studies show active ingredient semaglutide can reduce the risk of heart attack, improve fertility and help treat diabetes It is a drug that has dominated headlines, first as a medication for type 2 diabetes, then as a weight-loss aid. Now it seems semaglutide – often called by its brand names Ozempic or Wegovy – could bring benefits in myriad areas of healthcare, from addiction to dementia ..read more

Common infections will kill millions if drug resistance through misuse of antibiotics is not curbed, says England’s ex-chief medical officer What is antimicrobial resistance and how big a problem is it? The Covid-19 pandemic will “look minor” compared with what humanity faces from the growing number of superbugs resistant to current drugs, Prof Dame Sally Davies, England’s former chief medical officer, has warned. Davies, who is now the UK’s special envoy on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), lost her goddaughter two years ago to an infection that could not be treated ..read more