Eli Lilly & Co. and Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s diabetes drug Byetta on Monday received a federal warning after the drug was linked to deaths in two patients with an inflamed pancreas and four other hospitalizations.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now plans to strengthen warnings about life-threatening pancreas problems linked to the type 2 diabetes drug. Those who died were among six Byetta users who entered the hospital since October because of a condition known as acute pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas with bleeding). Their Byetta treatment was stopped and the four survivors were still recovering, the FDA posted on its website

Certain commonly used skin creams like moisturizers induced skin cancer in experiments on mice, a study released Thursday said, and experts are checking to see if they might cause growths in people as well.

Allan Conney and colleagues at Rutgers University in New Jersey said they tested four common skin creams on gene-altered hairless mice exposed to heavy doses of cancer-causing UV light

Like fuel, prices of drugs have been soaring from 100 percent even up to 1,000 percent, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota.

What is alarming is the prices of medicine could escalate further and double again in the next four years, the researchers said. The study said the average wholesale price of 26 brand-name drugs doubled in a single cost adjustment in 2007

Outside medical experts for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday recommended approval of Roche Holding AG's drug Actemra to treat moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.

The drug is more effective at reducing symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis than existing biologic agents, which are dominated by a type of drug known as anti-TNFs. The new drug will target the drug for patients who failed anti-TNFs, such as Johnson & Johnson's drug Remicade and Abbott Laboratories' Humira, DowJones reported

A Texas hospital here has acknowledged an error occurred in its pharmacy that caused the death of two newborn twins.

Although the hospital says doctors found no direct links to the overdose, as many as 17 babies were given overdoses of the blood thinner Heparin at the neonatal intensive care unit of Christus Spohn Hospital South on July 4