Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration and the Indonesian Food and Drug Authority now join the WLA network, which includes 41 authorities from 39 countries. WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Systems, Access and Data Yukiko Nakatani said the expanded network supports a more inclusive and globally connected regulatory system that improves access to safe, effective and quality health products worldwide.

Also Read: Less imports, more local – Indonesia’s pharma game plan 

The WLA framework supports regulatory reliance by allowing regulators, international agencies and procurement bodies to use the decisions of listed authorities. This approach reduces duplicated reviews, helps ease supply constraints and speeds access to medicines and vaccines, including during health emergencies.

WHO grants WLA status through a voluntary and science-based assessment using internationally agreed standards. Regulatory authorities undergo detailed technical evaluations to show reliable oversight across specific areas of medical product regulation.

Also Read: Floods disrupt lives of children in Indonesia – Report 

Indonesia’s Food and Drug Authority is the first standalone regulator from a middle-income country to achieve WLA status. WHO said the designation demonstrates that advanced regulatory capacity can be achieved across different resource settings and may encourage other low- and middle-income countries to pursue similar recognition.

With Australia’s inclusion, all authorities previously classified as stringent regulatory authorities have completed the transition into the WLA framework. WHO said other national regulators have already expressed interest in entering the process, indicating growing uptake of the system.

Source: WHO

EMP-012, now in phase I trials, targets a novel inflammatory pathway and could benefit patients regardless of baseline inflammation type, smoking status or co-morbidities. The treatment is designed for patients with limited options, particularly those who do not qualify for biologics.

GSK said the agreement supports its goal of transforming COPD care through long-acting therapies that address the underlying drivers of disease. The company will take over global development and commercialization after the phase I study, while Empirico will complete the ongoing trial.

Empirico said the collaboration validates its genetics-driven approach to target discovery and siRNA therapeutics and will accelerate the advancement of EMP-012 as a potential precision treatment for COPD and other inflammatory respiratory diseases.

A pharmacist said oseltamivir syrup, which is commonly prescribed for children, and the tablet form for adults have been out of stock for the past two weeks.

“There’s usually a seasonal increase in demand for influenza antivirals every year, but this time the purchases are more significant.

“This may be due to greater public awareness, with more people seeking medical attention after showing symptoms, since a doctor’s prescription is required to purchase antiviral medication,” she said.

When asked about claims of price increases, the pharmacist dismissed them, saying the prices remain unchanged – RM165 for a 100ml syrup bottle and RM190 for a pck of 10 tablets.

Another pharmacy also reported running out of oseltamivir syrup nearly a week ago, with only adult tablets still available.

“Pharmacies don’t usually keep large stocks of the syrup. Despite the surge in influenza cases, prices remain stable.

“The cost varies depending on the brand and formulation.

“The original oseltamivir is priced at over RM100 for 10 tablets, while generic versions are available for less,” another pharmacist said.

The Health Ministry (MOH) recently confirmed a rise in influenza infections across the country, especially in educational institutions.

According to MOH’s Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) surveillance, the rate of patient consultations rose from 7.38 per cent to 9.22 per cent between Epidemiological Weeks (EW) 40 and 41 this year.

Cumulatively, more than 530 influenza clusters have been detected nationwide since the start of the year.

As of Oct 13, about 6,000 students were reported to have contracted the virus.

Education director-general Dr Mohd Azam Ahmad said several schools have been temporarily closed on the advice of district health offices to contain the spread of infection.

Sonanos is a next-generation excipient that enhances sustained drug release and solubility, helping pharmaceutical developers address formulation and delivery challenges for biologics, peptides, and oncology therapies. Since 2020, Asahi Kasei has collaborated with global pharmaceutical companies on more than 60 feasibility studies using Sonanos samples.

The new grades include Sonanos PG, engineered for sustained release of biologics and peptides with patient-friendly dosing, and Sonanos DS, formulated to improve solubility for poorly water-soluble active pharmaceutical ingredients. Both versions were developed through optimization of encapsulation capacity and formulation performance.

Hideyuki Kimura, Senior General Manager of Asahi Kasei’s Healthcare Materials Division, said the new products strengthen the company’s position in pharmaceutical materials by offering novel excipient solutions that meet evolving customer needs.

Sonanos is also being advanced through DiveRadGel, an Asahi Kasei spin-out focused on cancer vaccine development. Its vaccine-grade version, Sonanos DV, has entered GMP production for early clinical trials.

The doctors started gathering at Laman Perdana near Perdana Putra at about 9.30am, holding signs that read, “Healthcare workers are undervalued”, “Unfair policies keep current and future doctors away”, and “Doctors have families, too”.

Ten representatives were escorted into the building to submit a memorandum at around 10.30am.

They were initially going to march from the health ministry’s headquarters to the PMO, but it is understood that they decided to gather at Perdana Putra directly as some participants are elderly.

The protest is organised by the Malaysian Medical Association’s (MMA) private general medical practitioners section.

Its chairman, Dr Parmjit Singh Kuldip Singh, said the protesters present included doctors from Kedah, Penang, Perak, Kelantan, as well as some who flew in from Sabah and Sarawak.

MMA has repeatedly said that it is not against the mandatory drug price display rule in itself but its implementation under a non-health related law.

The doctors argue that the rule should fall under the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act 1998, not the Price Control and Anti-Profiteering Act 2011.

MMA president Dr Kalwinder Singh Khaira also said health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad had promised that the price display rule would only be implemented after a review of GP consultation fees.

Consultation fees have remained unchanged for the last 30 years.

Source: Free Malaysia

(Photo from MIT)

MIT and Novo Nordisk researchers have developed an ingestible capsule that can deliver drugs directly into the walls of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, offering a needle-free alternative to injections. Inspired by squids’ jet propulsion, the capsule uses compressed gas or a spring mechanism to release a burst of medication into the digestive tissue.

The innovation could benefit patients requiring insulin, antibodies, or RNA-based therapies. Unlike traditional capsules that dissolve in the stomach, this device actively injects its payload into the submucosal layer, ensuring higher absorption rates.

The researchers designed the capsules to target different parts of the digestive tract. One version has a tube-like shape, enabling it to align within long tubular organs. Another version can be attached to an endoscope for targeted drug delivery during medical procedures.

Tests in animals showed that the capsule successfully delivered insulin, a diabetes drug, and gene-silencing RNA at levels comparable to standard injections, without causing tissue damage. The researchers believe this could make treatments more accessible and convenient, particularly for patients who dislike needles.

Future plans include further testing and potential human trials to refine the technology for real-world applications.

Since December, CheQpoint has detected bromazolam, a high-risk benzodiazepine, in five samples and nitazene, a deadly synthetic opioid linked to overdose deaths nationwide, in two cases.

The Queensland drug checking service operates as a 12-month government-funded pilot program, with an independent evaluation set to conclude in May. The Health Minister has stated that future funding decisions will depend on the evaluation’s findings.

A report has highlighted CheQpoint’s impact over the past year. The service has tested 800 drug samples from 490 individuals, revealing that one in ten contained unexpected psychoactive substances, including potent stimulants and ketamine variants. One in seven users chose to dispose of their drugs after consulting health professionals, while one in three sought further support through referrals to GPs or addiction services.

Cameron Francis, CEO of The Loop Australia, stressed the need for continued access to pill testing in Queensland. “Super potent synthetic opioids like nitazenes are emerging. If we can’t detect them early and warn the public, overdose rates could rise significantly,” he said.

Rebecca Lang, Qld Network of Alcohol and other Drugs (QNADA) CEO also warned that unregulated drug markets are becoming increasingly dangerous and services like CheQpoint are vital to reducing those risks.

AMA Queensland President Dr. Nick Yim echoed the call to keep the service running as “Pill testing provides a vital opportunity for health professionals to engage with people about drug use,” he said.

A blood vessel blockage that interrupts blood flow to the brain and causes neuronal death is a cause of ischaemic stroke – it is notoriously hard to recover fine motor control lost to ischaemic stroke, for which long-term rehabilitation is often required. A team at Ohio State University (OSU) reveal that an existing drug could help recovery by boosting growth of undamaged neurons to take over lost function.

According to the OSU team, a drug known as gabapentin can restore motor functions as it rewires the undamaged part of the brain – usually located in the brain hemisphere opposite the stroke-affected region – to repair broken connections between neurons.

Gabapentin blocks the expression of a receptor protein called alpha2delta2, which can become “hyperexcited” after an injury like a stroke and prevents nerve axon growth that could patch up the damage. Gabapentin is already in use for neurological disorders in humans such as nerve pain and seizures, so its safety record and side effects are already known.

When the OSU team administered gabapentin daily for six weeks to mice following a stroke, the animals were seen to recover a great degree of fine motor function in their forelimbs. This improvement persisted two weeks after treatment ended, indicating that the changes were solidified in the nervous system.

“Imagine this protein is the brake pedal and recovery is the gas pedal. You can push on the gas pedal but can’t accelerate as long as you’re also pushing on the brake pedal,” said Andrea Tedeschi, an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience in OSU’s College of Medicine.

“If you start lifting the brake pedal and continuously press on the gas, you can really speed up recovery. We think that is gabapentin’s effect on neurons, and there is a contribution of non-neuronal cells that tap into this process and make it even more effective,” he surmised.

Read: New finding to prevent plaque buildup and heart attack/stroke

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A team from the University of Bristol’s School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, UK, have discovered a key pathway in the brain which leads to anxious and fearful behaviour such as “freezing.” Anxiety and certain psychological disorders, which affect an estimated 264-million people worldwide, are survival responses elicited by the periaqueductal grey (PAG) region of the brain.

Activity in this region is influenced by the hindbrain or cerebellum – it is part of an extensive survival network within the brain.

Neuroscientists investigating the brain’s PAG area fitted animal models with electrodes to record activity and applied a conditioning task, whereby an auditory tone is paired with a small foot shock, to mimic the formation of a ‘fear memory’ and freezing, a behavioural index of fear. Here, a subset of brain cells increased their responsiveness to the conditioned tone, consistent with encoding a fear memory.

However, when cerebellar output was altered during conditioning, the subsequent timing of fear-related neuronal activity in the PAG region became less precise, and the duration of fear-related freezing behaviour was increased, thus confirming that cerebellar-PAG interactions contribute to fear conditioning processes.

The neuroscientists also noticed that the manipulation of a direct cerebellar-PAG pathway caused impairments in fear conditioned freezing and ultrasonic vocalisations.

“Until now, little was understood about how the cerebellum modulates neuronal activity in other brain regions, especially those related to fear and anxiety,” said research associates Dr. Charlotte Lawrenson and Dr. Elena Paci.

“Importantly, our results show that the cerebellum is part of the brain’s survival network that regulates fear memory processes at multiple timescales and in multiple ways; raising the possibility that dysfunctional interactions in the brain’s cerebellar-survival network may underlie fear-related disorders and comorbidities.”

The study demonstrates how PAG encodes fear memory and provides evidence that the cerebellum is an additional key structure in the list of brain regions that contribute to anxiety and fear. The findings are expected to guide treatment options for fear-evoked coping responses and psychological conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder.

Read: Singapore students create anxiety-alleviating mask for paediatric cancer patients

New research has identified a link between low rates of type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis patients treated with a drug called alendronate. The research analysed health records from several hundred thousand diabetes patients in Denmark, comparing diabetes rates among those prescribed alendronate with those who were not. It was later revealed that patients who had taken alendronate were 34% less likely to have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

The first-line treatment for osteoporosis, alendronate and other bisphosphonates helps strengthen bones and reduce the risk of a fracture. In contrast, diabetes patients have been known to have a higher risk of fractures, thought to result from poor blood sugar regulation that impacts bone quality; animal studies, meanwhile, have suggested that the modification of bone cells by osteoporosis drugs affects glucose regulation.

Read: US research finds new trigger for Type-2 diabetes in fatty acids

“Thus, we speculated that the treatment of osteoporosis might impact on the risk of type 2 diabetes,” said Dr. Rikke Viggers, of Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark. She explained that type 2 diabetes was a chronic condition that could lead to “other serious health conditions” including stroke, heart disease, blindness, and even limb amputation – anything that prevents, or even delays diabetes will then reduce a person’s risk of all these other conditions.

“Excitingly, our research suggests that alendronate, an inexpensive medicine widely used to treat osteoporosis, may also protect against type 2 diabetes.”

Dr. Viggers and colleagues found patients on active treatment with alendronate were 34% less likely to have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes than those who had never taken the drug. Further analysis suggested a dose-dependent relationship whereby patients taking alendronate for at least eight years could potentially reduce the risk by more than half (53%) compared to those who have never used alendronate.

The underlying mechanism explaining how alendronate could influence glucose metabolism or lower the risk of diabetes is still unclear. One hypothesis suggests alendronate could prevent the development of insulin resistance by reducing levels of oxidative stress and low-grade inflammation.

It is not known if other osteoporosis drugs have the same effect.

At present, Dr. Viggers does not propose drugs such as alendronate be directly prescribed to patients with diabetes as a front-line treatment but does suggest doctors consider the potential broader benefits of these drugs when dealing with osteoporosis patients.

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