Prep along with Application within Water Treating Magnetic Biochar
Importance Understanding the profitability of pharmaceutical companies is essential to formulating evidence-based policies to reduce drug costs while maintaining the industry's ability to innovate and provide essential medicines. Objective To compare the profitability of large pharmaceutical companies with other large companies. Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study compared the annual profits of 35 large pharmaceutical companies with 357 companies in the S&P 500 Index from 2000 to 2018 using information from annual financial reports. A statistically significant differential profit margin favoring pharmaceutical companies was evidence of greater profitability. Exposures Large pharmaceutical vs nonpharmaceutical companies. Main Outcomes and Measures The main outcomes were revenue and 3 measures of annual profit gross profit (revenue minus the cost of goods sold); earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA; pretax profit from core business activities); and netnces were smaller in regression models controlling for company size and year and when considering only companies reporting research and development expense (gross profit margin difference, 30.5% [95% CI, 20.9%-40.1%]; P less then .001; EBITDA margin difference, 9.2% [95% CI, 5.2%-13.2%]; P less then .001; net income margin difference, 3.6% [95% CI, 0.011%-7.2%]; P = .05). Conclusions and Relevance From 2000 to 2018, the profitability of large pharmaceutical companies was significantly greater than other large, public companies, but the difference was less pronounced when considering company size, year, or research and development expense. Data on the profitability of large pharmaceutical companies may be relevant to formulating evidence-based policies to make medicines more affordable.OBJECTIVE To describe changes in Japanese clinical trial regulations after the implementation of the Clinical Trials Act in April 2018. METHODS First, how to apply multiple regulations after the enforcement of Clinical Trials Act was described. Second, the changes in the number of clinical trials in the National Cancer Center Hospital under each regulation were compared before and after the implementation of Clinical Trials Act. Third, new requirements imposed by Clinical Trials Act and their influences were discussed. RESULTS In April 2018, Clinical Trials Act was enacted and academic clinical trials were classified into the following three categories (i) investigator-initiated registration-directed trial under the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Act; (ii) clinical trial under Clinical Trials Act; and (iii) clinical trial under the Ethical Guidelines. While 90% (205/227) of interventional studies were conducted under the Ethical Guidelines before the implementation of Clinical Trials Act in 2018, 46% (94/204) were subject to Clinical Trials Act in 2019 at the National Cancer Center Hospital. Under the Clinical Trials Act, investigators receive a scientific/ethical review by a certified review board (CRB). The identification of investigators in charge is mandated and they are required to submit the conflict of interest management plan to CRB. After the CRB review, the principal investigator must submit the trial plan to the government, and the content is uploaded to the newly established clinical trial registry site, the Japan Registry of Clinical Trials. CONCLUSIONS The enforcement of the new Clinical Trials Act was supposed to improve the reliability of academic clinical trials in Japan; however, the financial and administrative burden may reduce clinical trial activity in the years to come. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press.OBJECTIVES To investigate prolonged carriage of MRSA in adults from the general population living in a livestock-dense area, using WGS. METHODS A cross-sectional study during 2014-15 among 2492 adults without professional livestock contact identified 14 (0.6%) nasal MRSA carriers, 10 of which carried livestock-associated (LA)-MRSA of multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) complex (MC) 398. Two years later, 12 MRSA-positive and 88 MRSA-negative participants provided a second nasal swab and filled in a short questionnaire. Isolates from persons who were MRSA positive at both timepoints were compared using MLVA and isolates with the same MLVA type were sequenced. The WGS data were used for core-genome MLST (cgMLST) and resistome analysis, including sequenced isolates from the national MRSA surveillance. RESULTS All MRSA-negative persons tested negative again, while 6 of the 12 initially MRSA-positive persons tested positive again. MLVA revealed that isolate pairs from five individuals had the same MLVA type, of which three were LA-MRSA. cgMLST showed that the distance between these isolate pairs ranged between 3 and 13 genes, while the minimum distance to unrelated isolates from the national MRSA surveillance was 38 genes. Moreover, the resistome present in the five isolate pairs was identical within each pair. None of the prolonged carriers was hospitalized during the 3 months before the sampling moment and none of them with LA-MRSA had contact with livestock in this period. CONCLUSIONS Prolonged carriage of MRSA, including LA-MRSA, can be demonstrated after more than 30 months in persons without professional livestock contact. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email [email protected] Current knowledge on HIV-1 resistance to integrase inhibitors (INIs) is based mostly on subtype B strains. This contrasts with the increasing use of INIs in low- and middle-income countries, where non-B subtypes predominate. MATERIALS AND METHODS HIV-1 drug resistance genotyping was performed in 30 HIV-1-infected individuals undergoing virological failure to raltegravir. Drug resistance mutations (DRMs) and HIV-1 subtype were characterized using Stanford HIVdb and phylogenetic analyses. RESULTS Of the 30 integrase (IN) sequences, 14 were characterized as subtype F (47%), 8 as subtype B (27%), 7 as BF recombinants (23%) and 1 as a putative CRF05_DF (3%). In 25 cases (83%), protease and reverse transcriptase (PR-RT) sequences from the same individuals confirmed the presence of different BF recombinants. RGD peptide mouse Stanford HIVdb genotyping was concordant with phylogenetic inference in 70% of IN and 60% of PR-RT sequences. INI DRMs differed between B and F IN subtypes, with Q148K/R/H, G140S and E138K/A being more prevalent in subtype B (63% versus 0%, P = 0.