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A meeting that marks a new effort to promote collaboration between academic institutions and industry on translational research took place at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in February.
Biologics currently dominate the market for disease-modifying drugs for rheumatoid arthritis, but companies are betting that there is room for next-generation oral drugs that target protein kinases.
The Executive Director of US think tankFasterCuresdiscusses how the organization acts as a catalyst to accelerate the development of innovative therapies.
Computational chemistry — in particular, virtual screening — can provide valuable contributions in hit and lead discovery. However, it seems that there are relatively few examples so far of drug discovery projects in which virtual screening has been the key contributor. This article discusses aspects that could be limiting the potential of virtual screening, and proposes key directions in which significant progress could be made.
Third-party payers typically base their reimbursement decisions for a new drug predominantly on its health benefits relative to existing treatment options — termed relative efficacy (RE). Over the past decade, the role of payers has become more prominent, and drug developers increasingly need to satisfy the sometimes divergent needs of both regulators and payers to achieve market success. This article describes the political background to the RE debate and the challenges of RE assessment, and discusses the impact of RE on drug development.
This Review highlights the Toll-like receptors (TLRs) that hold the most promise for drug discovery research, discussing agents that are in the discovery phase or in clinical trials, as well as new aspects of TLR-mediated signalling that might offer further possibilities of therapeutic manipulation.
Antibiotic drug resistance has increased interest in developing vaccines against carbohydrate structures on the surface of bacterial pathogens. Astronomo and Burton examine recent progress in the identification, synthesis and evaluation of glycan epitopes found not only on bacteria, but also on protozoa, helminths, viruses, fungi and cancer cells for vaccine design.
A growing number of monoclonal antibodies are being developed for the treatment of malignancies, transplant rejection, autoimmune and other immune disorders; however, they can have severe side effects. Hansel and colleagues consider the mechanisms underlying these effects and strategies to minimize them during preclinical screening and in first-in-human trials.
