By Dr Ian Gilham The increasing cost of healthcare along with new opportunities for improved treatments puts ever increasing pressures on healthcare budgets. In recent years the diagnostic industry in particular has been the target of a number of cost-cutting exercises by governments and payers aimed at restricting the utilisation… Read More
Proteomatics - New information resources for proteomics By Dr David J Parry-Smith and Dr David S Bailey Proteomics is the science of understanding protein architectures at a supramolecular level, whereas the realm of understanding the organisation of biological information in its totality belongs to bioinformatics. Somewhat more prosaically, industrial bioinformatics… Read More
The importance of using human-based models in gene and drug discovery By Dr Michael G. Palfreyman, Dr Vinod Charles and Jeffrey Blander Completion of the human genome sequence has opened an unprecedented opportunity to discover the genetic contribution to many of the complex diseases that afflict humans and to use… Read More
By Dr Roger A. Edwards, Dr Kai Zhang and Louise Firth Different companies have employed various techniques and strategies for addressing productivity issues in the chemistry functions within pharmaceutical discovery and preclinical development. We benchmarked lead optimisation, clinical candidate selection, and chemistry support for preclinical development before IND filing in… Read More
SNP Genotyping in Drug Development By Dr Nicholas C. Dracopoli and Dr Kim E. Zerba SNP-based candidate gene analyses are likely to have a significant impact on predicting drug efficacy and will, undoubtedly, impact on the pharmaceutical industry's development strategies as a whole over the next few years. The human… Read More
Biotechnology, Bioterrorism & Biosecurity By Dr George Poste Advances in genetics and biotechnology offer great promise in the fight against infectious diseases. But the same technologies will also increase the threat from bioterrorism. Governments must accord 'biosecurity' a higher priority in defence and foreign policies to reduce the risk of… Read More
High throughput genomics and drug discovery - parallel universes or a continuum? By Dr Mark Beggs and Audrey Long HTS has been in place for approximately 10-12 years and has achieved a threeorder of magnitude scale up. Genomics has been in a 'high throughput' mode for approximately four years for… Read More
Chemical microarrays - The drug discovery superhighway By Elaine Seeskin While producing targets was once the bottleneck in the drug discovery process, in the post-genomic era this has been superseded by the requirement for high-quality lead structures. As a result of the pool of genomic data and countless unvalidated targets… Read More
Business strategy for implementation of biomarkers in drug development By Miles Flamenbaum With pharmacoproteomic biomarkers being the subject of focus among regulatory agencies as well as research institutions, many pharmaceutical companies are increasing their interest and investment in biomarker strategies. This article discusses the potential for new efficiencies and cost… Read More
The Impact of Genomics on Regulation By Dr Steve Arlington, Dr Tim Peakman, Adriana Salvatore and Jonathan Peachey Advances in science and technology are enabling us to understand physiology and pathology at a totally new level; to define, subtype and track diseases much more accurately; and to treat patients far… 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. This article… 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 properties opened as a result is beyond… 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 as it represents enormous progress if compared with… Read More
The Integration Abyss By Dr Scott D. Kahn The long-standing disconnect between target discovery/characterisation and compound discovery is a major challenge facing the pharmaceutical industry in its quest to develop innovative therapies from the wealth of information flowing from the human genome. There is enormous interest within the pharmaceutical and… Read More
Do venture capitalists act as gatekeepers of new technology? By Dr June Grindley and Samantha Smart This article discusses the important role that venture capitalists and others play in helping to create companies around new technologies. We asked a number of venture capitalists, when considering funding a new company, what… Read More
By Dr David C. U’Prichard It is almost axiomatic that the pharmaceutical R&D industry has not achieved in the last decade an increase in productivity (measured as high value NCEs) commensurate with the explosion of new biological information, chemistry techniques and information storage/retrieval/examination systems, let alone the real increase in… Read More
