Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Despite the vast amount of research on schizophrenia and depression in the past two decades, there have been few innovative drugs to treat these disorders. Precompetitive research collaborations between companies and academic groups can help tackle this innovation deficit, as illustrated by the achievements of the IMI-NEWMEDS consortium.
Despite the failure of Eli Lilly's anti-amyloid antibody solanezumab in its latest phase III trial for Alzheimer disease, a bulging pipeline of amyloid-modulating candidates and novel clinical trial strategies still hold promise.
The shape of the predicted sales launch curve can dramatically affect financial models of pre-commercial drugs. This article provides an update on a commonly used framework for modelling launch curves.
The success of mechanism-based drug discovery depends on the definition of the drug target, but targets are often poorly defined in the literature. Here, Overington and colleagues present a comprehensive map of the molecular targets of approved drugs, and explore aspects including the footprint of target classes across disease areas, the success of privileged target families and drug target orthologues across standard model organisms.
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) actively contribute to the formation of the tumour microenvironment by producing various factors that affect tumour growth and response to therapy. Moreover, MSCs can modulate tumour immunity. This Review discusses the various roles of MSCs in cancer and highlights potential strategies to target pro-tumorigenic activities of MSCs or take advantage of the tumour-homing capacity of MSCs for the delivery of drugs.
The colony-stimulating factors (CSFs) have roles in inflammation and immunity, and are potential targets for diseases caused by aberrant immune activation, including rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. Hamiltonet al. describe how distinguishing attributes could be used to target individual CSFs for therapeutic use in immune and inflammatory conditions and the progress that has been made towards that goal. They also clarify misconceptions about targeting this class of molecules.
