According to the FDA's news release, the drug is approved for use in certain patients, such as those who have a weak immune system from bone marrow transplants or those who have decreased white blood cell counts.
An example of a person with lowered white blood cells may be someone with cancer who just received chemotherapy treatment, which makes it harder for their body to fight infections. Noxafil can now be prescribed to help prevent these fungal infections from occurring.
According to the Director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Dr. Steven Galson, "Most healthy individuals are unaffected by these common fungi. However, individuals with severely weakened or abnormal immune systems may become seriously ill when exposed. These infections are often fatal for this population."
The active substance in Noxafil has never been approved for marketing in the U.S. before now. The clinical trials that were conducted provided good results. Of course, there were the normal range of side effects from the drug, which included nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and rashes.
For proper absorption of the drug to work, Noxafil must be taken with a full meal or with a nutritional supplement that is intended to be a dietary supplement.
