Prescription painkiller fentanyl has been recalled in the U.S. and Canada after manufacturers said that certain defects may cause leaks that can lead to fatal overdoses.

Its manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and Novartis AG's Sandoz voluntarily recalled patches in the U.S. and Canada that release 25 micrograms of fentanyl in an hour with expiration dates on or before December 2009

Research is showing that pharmacies are placing American lives at stake with the dispensation of wrong drugs, due to an increase in patient volume and disproportionate staffing.

A 2004 case arose from drug firm Walgreens which mistakenly gave the parents of a five-year-old child Methitest, a steroid for older males, while Trey Jones instead needed Inderal to control tremors

Pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co. Inc. agreed Thursday to pay the federal government, 49 states and the District of Columbia $650 million plus interest to settle two whistleblower lawsuits alleging it fixed drug prices to defraud Medicaid and other healthcare programs.

Merck, however, said the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing and liability. It maintained that its pricing, sales and marketing policies and practices are legal

A University of Rhode Island (URI) pharmacy professor developing compounds for treating cancers and AIDS is finalizing development of a topical cream that could be used by women during intercourse to prevent Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection.

Keykavous Parang, an associate professor of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences in URI's College of Pharmacy, and his team are developing anti-HIV-1 microbicides with or without spermicidal activity by combining agents having different mechanisms of action

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently said yes to Johnson and Johnson subsidiary Tibotec Pharmaceuticals' anti-retroviral drug etravirine, suggested as an extra therapy for patients who have failed to improve using other treatment regimens. Etravirine (Intelence) is related to a new class of anti-HIV drugs called non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI).

Results of two double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trials found that a blend of darunavir (Prezista) and etravirine (Intelence) helped more patients than a single darunavir (Prezista) therapy