Prediction versus Attrition in Drug Discovery & Development By Professor Malcolm Young The research-intensive part of the pharmaceutical industry is facing unusual commercial difficulties, whose elements are now well-known. A substantial number of very valuable drugs have gone, or are about to go, off patent; too few good new premium… Read More
Challenges in Transferring Bioanalytical Methods By Dr Chris Beaver Drug development is arduous and expensive with any delay to market resulting in significant financial impact. Delays at any stage of the process cause challenges to programmes, however, some are easier to predict and plan for than others. Development of bioanalytical… Read More
Growing Interest in Outsourcing Ion Channel Services By Dr John Comley Summer 2008 Significant demand now exists in Pharma and Biotech to access ion channel testing services and this is reflected by the number and the variety of service offerings. In the highly competitive area of cardiac safety hERG testing… Read More
Progress in the Implementation of Label-Free Detection - Cell-based assays By Dr John Comley Progress made in the use of impedance and optical grating technologies for label-free detection of cell-based assays where examined in HTStec's recent Cell-Based Label-Free Detection Trends report. Uniquely all of these label-free offerings are plate-based and… Read More
Emerging Real-time PCR Applications Dr Mikael Kubista Since its introduction on the commercial market little more than 10 years ago, real-time PCR has become the main technical platform for nucleic acid detection in research and development, as well as in routine diagnostics. In 2007 the real-time PCR market revenue in… Read More
Screening the Human Kinome - Expectations Met or Promises Pending? By Dr Richard M. Eglen Protein kinases are important targets in drug discovery programmes aimed at treating cancer, autoimmune disorders, diabetes and neurological disorders. Novel information on kinase biology is opening up other approaches in the design of selective inhibitors… Read More
The Potential of Molecular Imaging for Drug Discovery & Development By Dr Ken Rubenstein By combining cutting-edge biomedical research with the time-proven ability to visualise the unseen, the rapidly emerging field of molecular imaging promises to open new vistas for a wide range of individuals, from basic researchers to scientists… Read More
Dispense and Imaging Assays - Moving towards a more balanced use of both fluorescence and flash luminescent readouts By Dr John Comley Progress towards the uptake and adoption of flash luminescence readouts in screening were the subject of HTStec's recent Dispense & Imaging (D&I) Trends 2007 report. The report suggests… Read More
The Importance of Liquid Handling Quality Assurance in Drug Discovery By Dr Nathaniel G Hentz The tug-of-war between quality and productivity is an issue facing all drug discovery companies, competing in a fierce race to bring breakthrough drugs to market before the competition. With the advance of laboratory automation… Read More
Advances in Antibody Therapy - A promising new approach to how we treat cancer By Dr Patrick A Baeuerle Antibodies available today for cancer treatment, while effective, are typically used in combination with standard therapies because their activity as monotherapy is limited. Currently, four conventional antibody products dominate the oncology… Read More
Trends in the microRNA Marketplace By Kathy Gray and Dr Enal Razvi In this article, a recent market analysis is discussed aimed at understanding the market landscape, trends and opportunity in the rapidly-expanding microRNA marketplace. These market analyses are presented in detail in a recently published MicroRNA 2008 market report. Read More
Lean Six Sigma - Its application to drug discovery By Clare Hammond and Charles J O'Donnell In an increasingly competitive world, the race between pharmas to get high quality candidate drugs to market is on. Contributing to this success is the discovery phase of lead optimisation. The application of Lean… Read More
Progress in Systems-Based Analysis of Cellular Signalling By Dr Jeffrey A. Radding Drug discovery currently focuses on targeted approaches, relying on validation of the target as a disease driver. However, the underlying biological complexity of disease often frustrates these attempts at therapeutic intervention, resulting in high failure rates due to… Read More
Needs and challenges in High Throughput Screening By William Downey, Dr Helen Nicely and Dr Lynne Sopchak High throughput screening (HTS) groups face similar challenges as the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry as a whole faces. HTS groups are looking for ways to improve effectiveness in lead discovery, increase their productivity… Read More
Human ES Cell Derived Functional Cells as Tools in Drug Discovery By Dr Petter Bjorquist, Dr Peter Sartipy, Dr Raimund Strehl and Dr Johan Hyllner The drug discovery process is extremely-time consuming and expensive. Consequently, novel approaches for these processes and for reducing late-stage attrition are of great value for… Read More
Perspectives for ADMET Integration in the Discovery Process By Dr Constance Hofer ADMET (ADME/Tox), is a relatively new symbiotic acronym for the investigation of basic compound behaviour in terms of absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion, combined with assessments of toxicity. The emergence of ADMET instead of ADME reflects the growing… Read More
