Pharmaceuticals

Now that so many experimental drugs targeting amyloid-beta have bombed, scientists are looking for different approaches for treating Alzheimer's, including a drug that failed as a cancer treatment.

Drugmakers add inactive ingredients to stabilize medications and sometimes to help the body absorb the active ingredients. But the inactive constituents can cause side effects in rare cases.

Lawsuits over the way drugmakers have marketed opioids are already putting a dent in companies' reputations. Litigation has forced the release of internal documents that are shifting the narrative.

A lot of vaccines and some medications need to be delivered by injection. Two groups of researchers are designing ways of delivering these medications by putting them in pill form.

Loretta Boesing is on a mission to make sure prescription drugs delivered by mail are safe and effective. The life of her son — and others who order medicine by mail — could depend on it, she says.