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.
With all of my posts here about vaccines and antibodies, it’s only fair that I spend some time talking about the potential toxicology problems with both of those. I remain optimistic about both categories, but it’s for sure that not all the candidates being advanced are going to make it through. So what sorts of… Read More
I’ve mentioned it in passing before, but it bears repeating: this is a really unusual moment in drug discovery. We have simultaneously more new modes of action for therapy coming on in the clinic than I can ever recall, and some older ones are getting reworked to join the action. This short overview is a… Read More
Linus Pauling was a fearsomely great scientist who is remembered by the general public for his advocacy of megadoses of Vitamin C, a favorite topic of his later in life. Infectious disease, cancer: Pauling advised gram amounts of ascorbic acid and had a lot of theorizing to offer about why that was beneficial. So while… Read More
It’s our high failure rate in clinical trials that makes the drug industry what it is. And two of the biggest factors in that failure rate are picking the wrong targets/mechanisms, and unexpected toxicity. The first is clearly a failure of our understanding of human biology, and the only remedy I can see for that… Read More
I’ve highlighted several articles here over the years that cast doubt (to say the least) on the popular belief that Antioxidants Are Always Good For You. These other views do not seem to have penetrated the public consciousness yet, though, to judge by the way that foods and supplements are advertised. Today brings another example… Read More
When you look closely at cellular biochemistry, what you see are a lot of amazing processes that are surrounded by amazing amounts of redundancy, backups, patches, and accumulated tweaks and fixes. That’s evolution for you; these things have been piling up for a billion years or two, and we’re all the descendants of the critters… 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
Venetoclax (ABT-199) is an unusual drug. But now there’s some unusually bad (and unexpected) news about it. That’s the structure at right, and medicinal chemists will understand immediately why it’s a bit of an outlier. With a molecular weight of 868, that structure just keeps on going, with a somefeatures that you donR… 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
The proteasome is quite the structure. It is the shredding unit of the cell, where no-longer-needed proteins go to be ripped down to their components for recycling, and it’s become a more and more important part of drug discovery over the years. For one thing, all this fashionable targeted protein degradation work is about sending… Read More
