Derek Lowe's commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry. An editorially independent blog from the publishers of Science Translational Medicine. All content is Derek’s own, and he does not in any way speak for his employer.
Hot new technologies! We have waves of them in this business, and everyone talks about them, spends money looking at them, and does deals with small companies who are formed around them. But then reality sets in: only a few of these things march forward into the clinic, and even fewer emerge on the other… Read More
This is quite a synthetic chemistry accomplishment: the halichondrin derivative E7130 has been synthesized on an 11-gram scale by the Kishi group (open-access paper). I’ve copied that structure directly from the published paper, because there’s just not enough time this morning to redraw it! This would surely be the most complex natural… Read More
The recent post here on automation in chemistry (especially medicinal chemistry) is a good intro for this paper in ACS Med. Chem. Letters. It’s from David Parry, who led Cyclofluidic, and I’ve blogged about them a few times over the years. That was a company formed in 2008 in the UK to try to develop… Read More
This is a solid article by Jeffrey Flier (open-access in the Journal of Clinical Investigation) on the roles of academia and industry in drug discovery. Which is a topic that refuses to go away. I am prepared to swear that before starting this blog I had no idea of how many people are convinced that… Read More
We now have an updated look at clinical success rates in the industry, and it’s a timely topic. Last year there were 59 approvals by the FDA (a new record), and the year before was good as well. So the question is always whether such numbers are artifacts, random noise, or part of a real… Read More
Academic research and industrial drug discovery have always been on separate paths, but my impression is that the two understand each other better now than they have at any time during my career. That’s in no small part due to the number of industrial scientists who have moved into academia (itself in no small part… Read More
This piece in STAT is well worth a read. The author, Adam Rosenberg of Rodin Therapeutics, is ready to ditch rodent-centric models for human CNS disease, and I can see where he’s coming from. I’ve often said that when I think back on my Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia drug discovery days (back when I was first… Read More
I have not been a fan of Patrick Soon-Shiong and his approach to the biopharma business (and the publicity thereof). There’s a new lawsuit that (should its accusation hold up) will make anyone even less of a fan. Here’s a rundown at Endpoints, and one at Forbes. It’s a mess, so I’ll try to untangle… Read More
The FAAH (fatty acid amide hydrolase) enzyme system has provided a number of headlines over the years. FAAH itself is involved in the brain’s endocannabinoid system – it clears neurotransmitters like anandamide – and a number of other biologically important hydroxyethylamide and acyltaurines. So the potential for inhibitors of it… Read More
A few years ago on this blog, I wrote several times about a small company called Zafgen and their unusual epoxide-based chemical matter (beloranib) that was in development for the rare Prader-Willi syndrome. That’s a genetic disorder that includes, among many other problems, constant hunger (with the complications that you’d expect fro… Read More
