Clinical trials on new ovarian cancer drug show positive results
We’ve all been there. You’ve been struggling to stay awake all day, warding off yawns with countless cups of coffee and unable to think of anything but hitting the hay. But, the second you cosy down to catch forty winks, you’re wide-awake.
It turns out, that lying in bed unable to fall asleep is actually a disorder called conditioned or learned arousal and is considered one of the most common sleep problems. So why does it happen?
According t o sleepmedicine specialist Philip Gehrman, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, it’s because something in your sleep environment has signaled to your brain that getting into bed should “arouse” you rather than send you to sleep.
“If someone is a good sleeper, then each night they probably get in bed and fall asleep. So when they get into bed it triggers this auto response of sleepiness,” Gehrman told TIME.
“But if you spend night after night tossing and turning not being able to fall asleep, then your body associates that with your bed instead.”
Thanks to the domination of smartphones, tablets and laptops in our lives, tossing and turning in bed has become common for many but other factors like thinking about work or worrying can also disrupt your sleep. The most obvious way to treat the condition is to not have any screen time or bright lights in the hour before bed. This is because light, especially the blue light given off by screens, suppresses the production of melatonin, a chemical that helps your body to sleep.
Similarly, experts at Psychology today recommend taking regular exercise during the daytime, avoiding caffeine, alcohol and tobacco in the evening and not forcing yourself to sleep.Instead, if you’re having trouble nodding off, get up and do something relaxing until you feel ready to go to sleep.
If all else fails you could try cognitive behavioural therapy or CBT-I which involves regular visits to a clinician who will help to change your sleep schedule and bad habits. THE INDEPENDENT AstraZeneca’s ovarian cancer drug Lynparza slashed the risk of disease progression in a closely watched clinical trial, boosting its profile against rivals within the novel PARP inhibitor drug class.
The British drugmaker hopes the data from the trial will widen the use of Lynparza and help it keep up with competitors racing to broaden the use of PARP medicines.
Lynparza and other PARP inhibitors block enzymes involved in repairing damaged DNA, thereby helping to kill cancer cells. They are also being studied against other cancers, including breast and pancreatic tumors.
Women with recurrent ovarian cancer and defective BRCA genes lived a median 19.1 months without their disease worsening when given Lynparza, against 5.5 months for those on placebo, based on disease progression assessments carried out by investigators.
When disease progression was measured by central, blinded review, however, the figure rose to 30.2 months, according to data presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology annual meeting on Tuesday.
AstraZeneca Chief Medical Officer Sean Bohen said he was “extremely pleased with the results”.
AstraZeneca’s drug became the first of the new class to reach the market when it won U.S. approval at the end of 2014, but it is currently only recommended for fourth-line use.
The latest clinical trial is designed to move it up to second-line maintenance therapy, where it would be used for longer periods, significantly increasing its market.
AstraZeneca has developed a new tablet dose reducing the pill intake for patients from 16 capsules to four tab- lets a day.
Lynparza, which had been abandoned at one stage by AstraZeneca but was revived by CEO Pascal Soriot when he took over in 2012, is projected by have annual sales of $1.03 billion by 2022, according to Thomson Reuters data. It sold $218 million in 2016.
The strong Lynparza results wiped 13 percent off shares in Tesaro, whose competing drug niraparib is awaiting a regulatory green light and which has been viewed by many investors as the best of the PARP products.
In a clinical trial last year, niraparib showed progression-free survival of 21 months, as measured by central, blinded review.
Stock in rival Clovis Oncology , meanwhile, rose more than 7 percent. Clovis’ PARP inhibitor Rubraca won U.S. approval in December but
The most obvious way to treat the condition is to not have any screen time or bright lights in the hour before bed. This is because light, especially the blue light given off by screens, suppresses the production of melatonin, a chemical that helps your body to sleep.
had been seen as lagging niraparib.
AstraZeneca’s shares climbed 1 percent in New York. The smaller market reaction reflects the larger size of the British drugmaker and the fact that its investors are awaiting other clinical data.
Faced with the need to reinvent its drug portfolio following a raft of patent expiries, AstraZeneca’s turnaround will hinge crucially on the outcome of a two-drug immunotherapy trial in previously untreated lung-cancer patients. REUTERS
The latest clinical trial is designed to move it up to second-line maintenance therapy, where it would be used for longer periods, significantly increasing its market.