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Pharmaceuticals

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Left to right: Sigma Healthcare CEO Vikesh Ramsunder, Chemist Warehouse founders and brothers Sam Gance, Jack Gance, and CEO Mario Verrocchi.

‘50 years of toil, 50 years of grind’: Chemist Warehouse is now a $32 billion giant

The mega-merger with pharmaceutical distributor Sigma Healthcare has minted billions for the pharmacy chain’s three founders and spawned more than 100 millionaires, with their stakes worth between $5 million and $25 million.

  • Jessica Yun

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Dr George Rugarabamu, Amanda Handley and Brett Carter with Mark Sullivan (front), managing director of Medicines Development for Global Health in the centre.

A small team of Australian scientists won a rare drug approval – and upended the pharma system

Hundreds of thousands of doses of moxidectin – which treats a disease caused by a parasitic worm – are being given to patients, the result of an audacious strategy offering a new way to develop medicine for neglected populations.

  • Liam Mannix
Hundreds of medicines are in short supply including Hormone Replacement Therapies.

If Australia made more of its own medicines, we’d all feel better

Australia imports about 90 per cent of its medicine, and this makes us incredibly vulnerable to any supply disruption. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

  • Jennifer Martin
Any attempts to create “mirror life” should be stopped, according to the scientists who were trying to create it.

Scientists slam brakes on research that could lead to the perfect bioweapon

Potentially catastrophic risks to life as we know it have prompted dozens of eminent scientists to hit the brakes on their research.

  • Angus Dalton
The newly opened Moderna Technology Centre at Monash University in Clayton, Melbourne.

‘We don’t have a Team Australia approach’: Vaccine facility rejects plea for help

A request by NSW to access a taxpayer-funded Moderna mRNA facility was knocked back, raising more questions about how much value Australia is getting from the facility.

  • Liam Mannix and Paul Sakkal
More than 125 products containing phenylephrine are approved for Australian shelves.

Pharmaceutical giant sued over ‘ineffective’ cold and flu drugs

Sick customers who bought some cold and flu medications have been falsely assured their nasal congestion would be relieved, an Australian class action alleges.

  • Neve Brissenden
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Statements by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Elon Musk tap into a dispute over whether lifestyle changes or pharmaceuticals are better for treating obesity.

Can Ozempic make America slim again? RFK Jr and Musk are at odds

Two people whispering in Trump’s ear have opposing views on how to fix one of his biggest challenges: the country’s obesity problem.

  • Gina Kolata
Carmel Tebbutt, Michael Doyle and Ryan Park at the drug summit. 

Anger, frustration and revolt: Inside the final day of NSW’s drug summit

As the drug summit unfolded, it became dominated by the one topic the government wanted off the table: decriminalisation.

  • Michael McGowan and Angus Thomson
Government auditors have savaged the government’s top research agency’s lax approach to scientific misconduct and fraud in an audit that could lead to a major shakeup of the way bad science is policed.

Dodgy science in crosshairs as fraud audit censures Australia’s top research agency

The National Health and Medical Research Council has been criticised over its lax approach to scientific misconduct in an audit that lays the groundwork for changes in the way bad science is policed.

  • Liam Mannix
Johanna Barry with daughter Makenzie, who suffered night terrors and hallucinations which her parents attributed to the asthma drug she was taking at the time.

This asthma drug is taken by millions. Now scientists have found it in the brain

The findings, presented at a conference in Texas last week, have raised pressure on Australian authorities to better warn patients about the risks of montelukast.

  • Angus Thomson

Original URL: https://www.theage.com.au/topic/pharmaceuticals-hnn