Drug discovery

Protein Arrays for Assessment of Target Selectivity By Professor Ian Humphery-Smith, Dr Erik Wischerhoff and Dr Ryuji Hashimoto Transforming knowledge of the human genome into a lead optimisation tool. Genomics activity has been criticised for having elucidated a plethora of potentially interesting drug targets, each awaiting further validation, but having not yet revolutionised the pharmaceutical […]

Better drugs by MICROARRAY By Dr Mark Schena Microarray analysis allows the elucidation of biological processes and pathways on a genomic scale. This revolutionary technology promises an unprecedented view of drug action and side reaction, the ability to identify drug targets and optimise lead compounds, the capacity to predict patient responsiveness vis-a-vis patient genetics in […]

The New Blockbuster Drugs – Healthcare packages for particular disease pathologies By Dr Nick Davies and Dr Steve Arlington With the cost of bringing a new drug to market now exceeding $800 million there is no doubt that the pharmaceutical industry has to fundamentally address the way in which it operates. This article offers a […]

Share Share Tweet Email Stem Cell PHARMACEUTICS Stem Cell PHARMACEUTICS By Dr Gregory G. Lennon Recent research advances in the understanding of stem cell properties are inevitably leading to therapeutic strategies potentially applicable to many diseases. The pharmaceutical manipulation of multipotential cells such as stem cells is therefore now primed to evolve in its own […]

Predictive chemoinformatics applications to the pharmaceutical industry By Dr Leslie J. Browne and Laurie L.Taylor While significant advances in chemoinformatics present tremendous opportunities to improve human health, the future of chemoinformatics in the pharmaceutical industry is not without significant challenges. Chemoinformatics is the result of collective advances in chemistry, biology, computer sciences and statistics and […]

Protein Biochips – On the threshold of success By Dr Steven Bodovitz and Felicia Gentile With sales of protein biochips set to top $700 million in 2006, we present a current overview of this fast moving technology and the applications for the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. On the surface (pun intended), it appears that […]

CNS Drug Discovery – Realising the dream By Dr Julie C. Barnes and Dr Ann G. Hayes Over the years, the discovery of drugs for treating neurological and psychiatric diseases has proven to be one of the highest risk areas in the pharmaceutical industry. Despite the huge resources that have been invested in CNS discovery, […]

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 of diagnostic tests. This in […]

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 is about data handling and […]

The emergence of pharmacogenomics within the pharmaceutical industry By Aidan Power, Suzin Webb, Dr Albert Seymour and Dr Patrice Milos The sequencing of the human genome represents one of the most significant scientific advances of the 20th century that will shape the foundation of medical research well into the 21st. This accomplishment was enabled by […]

Bio Business in Asia – Fiction or Fact? By Dr Guy Heathers This article discusses development of successful indigenous biotechnology industries in Asia. Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan – three countries that have made the development of a biotechnology industry a cornerstone of their transformation from world-leading manufacturing economies to new, ‘knowledge-intensive’ economies of the […]

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 this information for new approaches […]

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 nine major pharmaceutical companies. Results […]

Fine-tuning the technology strategies for lead finding By Sandra Fox, Dr Shauna Farr-Jones, Dr Lynne Sopchak and Dr Helen Wang HTS has become the workhorse of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies’ drug discovery efforts, with expanding responsibilities and increasing pressures to screen more targets with better compound libraries to find high-quality leads. HTS groups have taken […]

Monoclonal Antibodies – Magic bullets or a shot in the dark By Dr Fiona Adair It has been 16 years since the first monoclonal antibody was approved for therapy in acute transplant rejection. Now, with a further nine therapeutic monoclonal antibodies approved for use and some 16 in phase III trials or beyond, are we […]

Nanolitre Dispensing – On the point of delivery By Dr John Comley Precise low-volume liquid handling methodologies are still sought after by those interested in enabling miniaturised HTS. This article reviews the need for nanolitre dispensing and provides a current perspective on those emerging technologies that have the potential to deliver in the short term. […]