Saturday, May 16, 2015

Pill that quashes tobacco urge found in plain sight

Pill that quashes tobacco urge found in plain sight

Rick Stewart didn’t know about the laburnum trees growing in Bulgaria — and their potential to produce a drug for quitting smoking — back when he was the chief executive of the pharmaceutical company Amarin.

Now, with the help of the National Institutes of Health, Stewart is trying to introduce the laburnum-derived drug to the U.S. market. The pill works by interrupting tobacco cravings, much like Pfizer’s top-selling Chantix, but possibly without that drug’s high-profile side effects and at a much lower price. A recent run of positive studies have buoyed the pill’s prospects. Today, researchers are excited about what could be the first new treatment for smoking cessation to emerge in years."

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