Emer regresses and loses life, despite medicines (8)
I believe the answer is:
remedies
'medicines' is the definition.
(remedy is a kind of medicine)
'emer regresses and loses life' is the wordplay.
'regresses' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (I've seen 'regress' mean this).
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'loses life' becomes 'dies' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'emer' in reverse letter order is 'reme'.
'reme'+'dies'='REMEDIES'
'despite' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for remedies that I've seen before include "drugs?" , "Cures and corrections" , "repairs" .)