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Published online 16 March 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/458269a
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Big interest in heavy drugs
The drug industry is seeking profits by modifying hydrogen in existing medications.
Pharmaceutical companies are beginning to bet on the idea that simply switching a hydrogen atom with a heavier isotope in a currently approved drug could create a better drug. Encouraged by results from clinical trials, companies are snapping up intellectual-property rights on many of the modified drugs.
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The biggest obviousness is that the creativity is fading away.
Couldn't agree more, Leandro. And, usually some deuterated and tritiated versions of the compound are made for analytical or screening experiments within a "normal" drug discovery project. So good luck regarding novelty !
these deuterated compounds can be made for anti-cancer drugs which cause severe side effects.As is tested for paroxetine in the same way one can proceed till end to see whether these deuterated compounds can remove side effercts.
This is old hat. A deuterated anticancer drug (I think it was alpha-deutero-fluoroaniline) was developed in the 1970s, but subsequently abandoned (which is the normal fate of the majority of compounds put on development). It's funny how things get forgotten, ignored or reinvented just as soon as the innovators are expected to have reached retirement age.
While I agree that there is some questionable "creativity" or "novelty" going on here, the reasons behind the attempt to make already-marketed drugs more effective cannot be understated. It's no secret that pharmaceuticals are incredibly expensive to bring to market; not to mention that the whole proces is painstakingly slow. And, unfortunately, many drugs are only marginally effective in some people. Drugs for depression and cancer are notorious for this. If I were leading the helm of a drug company, I would be ecstatic at the opportunity to explore performing a simple modification to one of the company's already-approved drugs and then testing its effectiveness. It would seem that such a process would be cheaper (by orders of magnitude, perhaps) than trying to test for, and introduce, a new drug. And, just because one deuterated anticancer drug failed does not mean that they all will. Until we get much better at being able to predict which people will respond well to which drugs, it seems to make sense to try and get the most effectiveness (and perhaps fewer side effects) out of the drugs we have available now. If I were a patient with one of the conditions this modified drug treats, I would welcome this advance. Of course, if this new drug is patented like the original one, it will be almost 20 yrs before generics can be made, so I'm sure the return on investment from the standpoint of the pharma company could be tremendous.
Maybe it's time go the other way: light drugs Just think about it: ?sodium chloride lite? for the truly discerning weight watcher - NaCl35, contains none of that heavy & nasty Cl37 All you need is a huge centrifuge ;-)
The main aim in drug industry is not to be creative, but to produce more effective drugs with as little side effects as it is possible. If it can be achieved by changing some hydrogen atoms to deuterium, why it is a problem? Sometimes the most simple solution is the best solution. Csaba Szalai
The authors' findings are very interesting and I think somewhat unexpected, certainly when one gets down to the specific positions within the molecular structures that are deuterated. Perhaps obvious to try deuteration but by no means obvious outcomes. I don't think the current art could even begin to predict the specific outcomes observed and reported in advance of the findings. If drug development were so well informed the hurtles to develop efficacious pharmaceuticals would be much more straightforward than presently seems to be the case. As to creativity, I think they are as I believe the findings are indeed unexpected and likely a priori unpredictable by the present art. Hat's off to those among us that could or can make such predictions especially in the context of the individual variation observed in both drug metabolism and responses between individuals.