Eurofins Central Lab Blog

While we have numerous symptomatic treatments today, there is still no cure for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. There are more than 600 neurodegenerative diseases alone that affect the brain, spine, and peripheral nervous system. While diseases like Parkinson’s affect motor functions, Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease that destroys memory and other mental functions.

At Eurofins BioPharma Services, we feel this FDA press release, as a Christmas gift that came early! After working on multiple protocols, across multiple clients, we couldn't be happier to see the continued evolution of treatment solutions for this rare disease (around 2 cases per million). Prior to the first treatment being released in 2007, life expectancy of patient diagnosed with PNH was only ten years, with poor quality of life throughout that time. With the significant resource dedication of years of effort and capital, our peers and colleagues throughout the clinical trial industry have allowed patients to have:

We would like to congratulate our colleagues at Eurofins DiscoverX for their recent patent application approval for improvements to compound screening and evaluation on cellular responses.

Currently, there aren't any globally-approved pharmaceutical treatments for Stress Urinary Incontinence (SUI). With a predominately female patient population ranging in the hundreds of millions of people worldwide, this provides them with only surgical and physical therapy-based options, limiting their choice of solutions. While effective for some, there can be challenges that come with the invasive nature of surgical procedures, as well as non-compliance with the length of time required for successful physical therapy outcomes. 

Testicular Toxicity

After being in the draft stages for approximately three years and continuing to receive industry feedback, the FDA CDER has just released final Guidance for Industry Title Testicular Toxicity: Evaluation During Drug Development in October 2018. There are numerous challenges with conducting multi-center clinical trials focusing on testicular toxicity and yet remaining within the realm of guidance from the FDA per their statement:

In the realm of infectious disease, antibiotic resistance is a real and ever increasing concern across the entire healthcare industry.  This is also true for ocular infections.  With bacterial conjunctivitis being the second most common cause (versus viral conjunctivitis), diligent epidemiology and surveillance monitoring brings valued insight to us all.  Eurofins Central Laboratory is proud to have provided analytical services (microbiological species confirmation and antibiotic resistance profile determination) to one of the only two nationwide multi-center surveillance studies (Antibiotic Resistance Monitoring in Ocular Microorganisms - ARMOR) ever undertaken in this indication. Article can be downloaded here.

World Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Day is organized by the Gloobal Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) in collaboration with health care professionals and COPD patient groups throughout the world. World COPD Day is celebrated on November 15th, 2018, and it's aim is to raise awareness about the disease and improve outcomes throughout the world.

On November 17th, 2018, we celebrate World Prematurity Day with March of Dimes. According to March of Dimes, "Premature birth is the leading cause of death in children under the age of five worldwide. Babies born too early may have more health issues than babies born on time, and may face long-term health problems that affect the brain, the lungs, hearing or vision."

On November 14th, 2018, we celebrate World Diabetes Day (WDD) in remembrance of Sir Frederick Banting, who co-discovered insulin, along with Charles Best in 1922. According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), World Diabetes Day was created in 1991 IDF and the World Health Organization in response to increasing concerns about the escalating health threat posed by diabetes to a growing number of people.