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The increasing availability of individual-level data from clinical trials could allow the relative efficacy of new drugs to be assessed in a robust, cost-effective and timely way.
Intercept Pharmaceuticals has announced plans for the first ever pivotal trial in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), setting a high bar for a growing pipeline of drugs against the liver disease.
Moncef Slaoui, Chairman of Vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline, discusses the GSK–Novartis asset swap, the future of vaccines at GSK, and the implications for the company's remaining oncology programmes.
Using a novel metric that links investment in drug research and development (R&D) to output in terms of revenue from the resultant drugs, this article analyses trends in R&D productivity overall and in specific therapeutic areas, and discusses strategies for improvement.
Epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation have an important role in brain development, and evidence is accumulating that some neurological, psychiatric and behavioural disorders can be triggered or maintained by epigenetic means. In this Perspective article, Moshe Szyf explores the epigenetic basis of disorders of the central nervous system (CNS) and discusses strategies for the development of epigenetic-targeted drugs for CNS indications, as well as the particular challenges associated with this approach.
Attempts to reduce the number of efficacy- and safety-related failures that may be linked to the physicochemical properties of small-molecule drug candidates have been inconclusive owing to the limited size of data sets from individual companies. Waring and colleagues analyse the largest data set compiled so far on the causes of attrition for oral, small-molecule drug candidates, derived from a pioneering data-sharing effort by AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer.
Although natural killer (NK) cells can induce immune responses against malignancies, their therapeutic potential in the clinic is largely unexplored. In this Review, Childs and Carlsten discuss recent insights into NK cell biology and how these can be used for the development of new immunotherapeutic strategies against cancer.
Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) provide a powerful means to augment T cell-based anticancer efficacy, and second-generation CARs have shown remarkable results in clinical trials. Here, the authors discuss the immunopharmacology of the different CAR constructs that are currently in clinical testing.
