LONDON (Reuters) – British drugmaker GSK applied on Friday for a license to market its HIV drug dolutegravir in a formulation designed to be easier for babies and children who are living with the virus to swallow.

About 1.7 million children have HIV, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations agency UNAIDS says.

If approved by regulators, the medicine will be the first new generation HIV medicine available in baby-friendly form.

Doctors wanting to use dolutegravir in children with HIV have had no licensed child formulations, meaning they often have to prescribe older HIV medicines that can be less potent, harder for children to take, and have more side effects.

“Children in today’s world, still have fewer options in terms of HIV therapies compared to adults,” said Harmony Garges, chief medical officer for ViiV Healthcare, GSK’s HIV drugs division. She said she hoped the license application would “enable approval of dolutegravir across the pediatric spectrum”.

ViiV’s CEO Deborah Waterhouse added in a statement: “For parents living in resource-poor countries, the ability to give medicine to children in a format that they can swallow and tolerate can mean the difference between life and death.”

Dolutegravir is a so-called integrase inhibitor and was originally developed by ViiV, in which Pfizer Inc and Shionogi & Co have small stakes. For the adult formulation, ViiV has already agreed licensing deals with generic companies to sell low-cost versions in poor countries.

New HIV infections among children have fallen by 41% since 2010, but there were 160,000 new cases in babies and children in 2018, and 100,000 children died of AIDS last year, partly due to lack of access to HIV medicines.

Helen McDowell, ViiV’s head of government affairs and global public health, said that subject to licenses being granted by U.S. and European drug regulators, the company was planning for an initial roll-out in sub-Saharan Africa next year.

ViiV’s version of the child formulation will be priced at “cost of production” she said but declined to give more detail.

ViiV is planning licensing agreements with two generic drugmakers, Mylan Laboratories and Macleods Pharmaceuticals, who aim to make cheaper generic versions of the dispersible pill available within months of ViiV’s coming to market, she added.

Indian generic drugmaker Cipla said last month it was seeking regulatory approval for a four-in-one HIV drug combination called Quadimmune, which it promised to price at below $1 a day.

The post GSK’s ViiV seeks marketing license for baby-friendly HIV pill appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

London: Childhood obesity is on the rise and in order to tackle the issue London’s Child Obesity Taskforce has set out a number of measures that it will focus on reducing the number of overweight children and promote a healthy lifestyle, such as drinking plenty of water and being physically active.

According to the official data, nearly 40 per cent of London’s children aged 10 or 11 are either obese or overweight, reported TheMayor.eu.

The alarming statistics have pushed the UK’s capital to act upon the current situation. London mayor Sadiq Khan has specially assigned a Child Obesity Task Force for the issue.

Regarding childhood obesity, Khan said that “It’s shocking that our city has such high levels of child obesity and that our children’s health depends so much on who they are and where they live.” He noted that everyone has a “role to play” to tackle the health crises.

“We all have a role to play if we are to tackle this health crisis – so Londoners’ lives can be improved, reducing the burden on our overstretched health and care service. That’s why I’ve already set out proposals cracking down on takeaways near schools and increasing the number of water fountains in the capital,” Khan added.

The independent task force has set out 10 ambitions aimed at tackling the issue of childhood obesity, with calls to action including ending child poverty in the city, making free water more available, and restricting takeaway and fast-food restaurants, among many others.

The first of the ambitions is to put an end to child poverty in the city. The task force wants the Mayor to set out the minimum wage of the capital and for more businesses to start offering the “living wage”.

The plan has also envisioned steps focused at those looking after youngsters like providing support to women to breastfeed for longer by increasing the number of support groups for mothers and improving data on breastfeeding.

It also aims to create food training programmes for professionals like chefs and caterers working with children.

The plan also enlists the launch of a campaign aimed at supporting parents of young children.

Another ambition focuses on the things that children consume including making free water available everywhere around the city.

The task force also aims to restrict fast-food restaurants to sell products when unaccompanied children are likely to visit and offering companies incentives to do so.

The plan also focuses on harnessing the power of investment to create good food. The task force wants the city to create a good food investment fund which will help the producers in offering healthy options at decent prices.

The post London sets out plans to tackle childhood obesity appeared first on MyMedicPlus.