Changing the Model for Lab Equipment Maintenance and Asset Management By Martin Long A large section of the Pharmaceutical, Biotech and supporting industries are currently driving aggressive cost-saving initiatives throughout their operations to remain competitive, and deliver shareholder value. One such area is the cost associated with maintaining laboratory instrumentation… Read More
Personalised Medicine - Technological innovation and patient empowerment or exuberant hyperbole? By Adam W. Culbertson, Dr Stephen J. Valentine and Dr Stephen Naylor The current paradigm of modern healthcare focuses on patient symptoms, subsequent diagnosis and corresponding treatment of the specific disease(s). Escalating healthcare costs and a trial and error… Read More
The evolving world of drug discovery data integration in the pharmaceutical industry Dr David Sedlock The world of drug discovery has been impacted significantly by an ever evolving use of computer systems during the past 25 years with the greatest change occurring during the past 10 years or so as… Read More
Establishment of an open access compound management facility By David Camp This article covers the establishment of an open access compound management facility in Australia to stimulate applied, basic and translational biomedical research. The paradigm for probing biological processes and drug discovery via small molecules has changed significantly over the… Read More
By Dr Jean-Luc Vanderheyden As the experience and advances in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging grows, so does the belief that this technology can have a key role to play in ushering in an era of personalised medicine while also offering an enormous contribution in reducing the attrition rates in… Read More
Serial vs Direct Dilution - Time to apply new thinking to IC50 determination and dose-response analysis? By Dr John Comley The serial dilution method is standard practice in the preparation of doseresponse series for IC50 determination. However, it is well recognised that inadequacies in the liquid handling or mixing technique… Read More
By Anthony Rosenberg Partnering and licensing have become paramount in a pharmaceutical industry that is under inordinate pressure to fill pipelines and increase the number of approved new molecular entities. This article discusses how Novartis has gone about addressing this issue. There is a great deal of focus on discovering… Read More
Lean Thinking for Drug Discovery – Better Productivity for Pharma By Dr Edward W. Petrillo Success in drug discovery controls the success of the pharmaceutical enterprise. The molecular structure of every drug candidate, and the body of knowledge that will guide its use in the treatment of disease, are established… Read More
India - Global pharmaceutical R&D powerhouse or contract research workshop? By Dr Matthew Howard In response to the ever-increasing costs of drug discovery and development, pharmaceutical industry leaders must constantly seek to increase productivity while simultaneously reducing costs and maintaining quality. Globalisation of drug discovery may provide such an opportunity,… Read More
Sharing Risks and Rewards - Basis for a turnkey pharma-biotech alliance in osteoarthritis Dr Andre Hoekema In June 2006, Galapagos and GlaxoSmithKline’s Center of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD) formed a multi-year worldwide alliance to discover and develop novel drugs for osteoarthritis. The focus of the alliance will be… Read More
Kinase Screening and Profiling Products - Spoilt for choice By Dr John Comley The end user is spoilt for choice with the range of alternative offerings, methodologies and approaches currently available for kinase screening and profiling. Whereas wider coverage of the kinome was the principal focus of kinase profiling a… Read More
Genetics & Personalised Medicine - Whole genome association and genetic linkage studies By Dr John W. Hooper Genetic linkage studies have long been the standard for researching the genetics associated with heritable diseases. Recently, however, scientists have begun to realise the benefits of whole genome association studies, which enable them… Read More
The Role of Microarray Technology in Pharmaceutical Development and Diagnostics By Richard Fisler The expectation that microarray technology will play a large role in shaping the future of pharmaceutical development and diagnostics has greatly increased due to new products and applications. Microarrays for gene expression have made a profound impact… Read More
Emerging concepts of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) function and drug discovery By Dr Richard M. Eglen, Dr Roger Bosse and Dr Graham S. Long G protein-coupled cell surface receptors (GPCRs) have served a fundamental role in modern pharmacology, due to their central importance in cell communication, and have been the… Read More
The Role of Repositioning in Drug Discovery and Development By Dr Louis A. Tartaglia and Dr Lee E. Babiss The large number of drug candidate failures in recent years has been enormously costly for the pharmaceutical industry, but has also created the tremendous opportunity of repositioning these molecules into new… Read More
Implementing and Operating Large Complex Capital Projects in a Research Environment By Dr Tim Peakman UK Biobank is a major UK study that will recruit 500,000 volunteers aged between 40 and 69 to provide a resource to study the link between genetic factors, environment and lifestyle in the causes of… Read More
