New Developments in Analgesia By Dr Susan Boyce, Dr Zahid Ali and Dr Raymond G. Hill Novel therapies for pain and headache are major medical needs and constitute a continued opportunity. Novel treatments are likely to arise from a better understanding of both the pathophysiology of clinical… Read More
Health economic considerations for early drug discovery By Dr Ann-Marie Craig and Dr Lisa Kennedy The use of health economics in early phase development, while not an exact science, can, when conjoined with clinical evidence, be a very valuable information tool enabling companies to identify whether there is… Read More
Surrogate Endpoints In Cancer Trials By Professor Karol Sikora Over the next 20 years systematic programmes of cancer risk assessment will be established and cancer-preventive drugs will be developed. The ability to prevent cancer will dramatically increase the number of people who will need to regularly attend clinics. Read More
Protein Arrays – New technology for the proteomics era By Dr Jeffrey P. Kiplinger The study of the human proteome will drive drug discovery in coming years; although how, when, and in what direction are a little uncertain at present. To build understanding of the role of the… Read More
Unrealised wealth in the avalanche of science By Dr Benjamin P. Chen The human genome information complemented with high throughput screening, proteomics and molecular structure analysis has significantly increased the speed at which potential drug leads are identified. The Pandora’s box of intellectual… Read More
Stem Cells – The long march forward to the clinic By Dr Alan Colman The area of cellular therapeutics has never been readily embraced by ‘Big Pharma’, with ethical and regulatory issues even more complex and troublesome than proteins. Can stem cell therapy provide the key to unlocking… Read More
Outsourcing life science informatics solutions By Dr Steve Gardner The life science industry depends on information gathered from new technologies for productivity and competitive advantage in the R&D process. As more information is gathered and the systems become more complex, building and maintaining data management solutions that… Read More
By Professor Klaus Lindpaintner Pharmacogenetics represents a logical and consequent step in the history of medicine, but what are the immediate benefits and where do the hurdles lie in its implementation? It is common knowledge that today’s pharmacopea – in as much… Read More
By Dr Doros Platika As the population ages, the scientific and medical communities are working to solve the challenges this changing demographic will place on society. Companies involved in the promising field of regenerative medicine are now on the cutting edge as it strives to… Read More
Protein Therapeutics – New ladders up the fruit tree By Dr Richard AG Smith Therapeutic proteins are often regarded as too technologically demanding, too costly, too restricted in routes or duration of administration or – in an era of massive opportunity provided by high throughput screening, combinatorial chemistry… Read More
Biologically Relevant Chemistry By Dr Stephen A. Hill A large proportion of R&D expenditure relates to the investigation of compounds which ultimately fail to reach the market as useful medicines. We discuss why early drug discovery – using high throughput, automated in vitro and in silico methods, must… Read More
Implementation or algorithm? The value of Bioinformatics By Dr Christopher Hogue Recently the value of bioinformatics has been questioned. The value can be proven but are there enough qualified and professionally trained people who know how to build good bioinformatics tools? At the… Read More
Pharmaceutical Industry R&D Partnering Strategies By Riccardo Pigliucci Drug Discovery With a sustained rate of more than 250 R&D partnering deals each year many valuable lessons are being learned. Although there is no exact ‘formula for success’ there are many ‘success factors’ that can be utilised to… Read More
e-R&D – The internet at work By Dr Alpheus Bingham and Dr Neil Bodick It is difficult to understand how the continuing growth of large monolithic Research & Development organisations can sustain the industry. With the economies of scale providing diminishing returns we examine the promise of… Read More
Modelling and simulation in drug development, promise and reality By Dr Mark Sale Modelling and simulation in drug development is not new. What is new is the vision for moving from a descriptive role (what happened) to a predictive and therefore decision making role. While seemingly attractive, important… Read More
Increasing the chances of lead discovery By Sandra Fox, MBA, Dr Helen Wang, Dr Lynne Sopchak and Dr Richard Khoury For HTS laboratories worldwide, the mission is to supply therapeutic groups in the shortest time possible with high quality hits and leads that will become drug candidates. Read More
