Drug Discovery News and Research

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The drug discovery process begins with recognizing a disease or clinical condition in which there is a lack of adequate medical treatment. Once a potential drug has been identified, pre-clinical research can begin. This process includes several stages; the first of which involves identifying and validating the prospective drug’s target through assay development, high throughput screening, hit identification and finally, lead optimization. Once the pre-clinical process is complete, the newly synthesized drug candidate is selected for future clinical development.

Scientists create new phenotypic cancer drug screening platform

Researchers have created a new phenotypic screening platform that better predicts success of drugs developed to prevent blood vessel tumor growth when moving out of the lab and onto actual tumors.

14 Nov 2011

Researchers identify new cancer drug discovery approach

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center have identified a new drug discovery approach enabling the destruction of the most highly proliferative tumors.

14 Nov 2011

ACADIA third quarter revenues decrease to $584,000

9 Nov 2011

Novel mathematical method reveals genetic distinction between individuals

At a time when profound gaps remain in our understanding of how one person's genes differ from another person's, developing accurate methods to interpret the human genome is essential to uncover population history, population relationships and the genetic basis of some of the most common diseases affecting society.

9 Nov 2011

AMRI reports $50.2 million total revenue for third quarter 2011

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9 Nov 2011

ACADIA and Meiji Seika collaborate to develop AM-831 for schizophrenia treatment

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biopharmaceutical company utilizing innovative technology to fuel drug discovery and clinical development of novel treatments for central nervous system disorders, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has completed its review of ACADIA's Investigational New Drug application to begin Phase I clinical studies with AM-831, an innovative small molecule for the treatment of schizophrenia.

7 Nov 2011

Scientists achieve major step toward goal of producing synthetic Taxol

Taxanes are a family of compounds that includes one of the most important cancer drugs ever discovered, Taxol, among other cancer treatments. But the difficulty producing these complex molecules in the lab has hampered or blocked exploration of the family for further drug leads. Now, a group of Scripps Research Institute scientists has successfully achieved a major step toward the goal of synthetically producing Taxol and other complex taxanes on a quest to harness chemical reactions that could enable research on previously unavailable potential drugs.

7 Nov 2011

Encouraging results from SEEK's FLU-v Phase II study

SEEK, a leading UK privately-owned drug-discovery group, today announced encouraging results following the successful completion of its Universal Flu Vaccine Phase II challenge study.

7 Nov 2011

Karolinska Institute researchers discover novel cancer drug target

Vivolux AB, a drug discovery company specialized in cancer treatment, announced today that data that forms the basis for one of the company's promising projects has been published in the journal Nature Medicine. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute have discovered a novel cancer drug target.

7 Nov 2011

Blocking APE1 enzyme could provide new way to kill cancer cells

BLOCKING a key DNA damage repair enzyme, called APE1, could provide a new way to kill cancer cells containing faulty BRCA genes, according to research presented at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference in Liverpool.

7 Nov 2011

Researchers identify surprising mechanism that facilitates protein interactions

Research led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists has identified an unexpected mechanism facilitating some protein interactions that are the workhorses of cells and, in the process, identified a potential new cancer drug development target.

5 Nov 2011

Presidio Pharmaceuticals advances with its HCV antiviral drug discovery, development programs

Presidio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced progress with its HCV antiviral drug discovery and development programs. A primary company objective is to advance multiple potent and safe inhibitors that target multiple HCV proteins and provide pan-genotypic coverage, as we believe such combination therapies will more adequately address the global medical need in the future.

5 Nov 2011

SCRIP honors Glenmark for business excellence and innovative R & D capabilities

SCRIP, a leading global pharmaceutical and biotech news publication, honoured Glenmark with two global recognitions, for its business excellence and innovative R & D capabilities.

5 Nov 2011

Quanticel, Celgene and Versant enter collaboration to discover and develop first-in-class cancer drugs

Privately held biotechnology company Quanticel Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Celgene Corporation, together with Versant Ventures, today announced they have entered into an exclusive, strategic collaboration to discover and develop first-in-class cancer drugs.

4 Nov 2011

Pfizer, Sanford-Burnham to partner on translational medicine research

Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute is the latest research organization to partner with Pfizer, Inc. as part of Pfizer's commitment to transforming research and development through a focus on translational medicine.

4 Nov 2011

The brain and the heart may not be so different after all

What do heart disease and dementia have in common? Perhaps more than meets the eye, according to researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

3 Nov 2011

IP-K and Sanofi form new HBV research collaboration

One of the most common and serious infectious diseases, Hepatitis B, is to be targeted in a new collaborative venture between the internationally-renowned translational research institute, Institut Pasteur Korea (IP-K), and the Korean arm of the leading global healthcare company, Sanofi-Aventis Korea. The goal is to develop and validate a high throughput assay to screen IP-K's chemical libraries for novel compounds that can be developed as new drugs.

3 Nov 2011

Scientists discover additional Alzheimer's proteins in the tangles

Scientists from the National Institutes of Health in the United States have made an important discovery that should forever change the scope and direction of Alzheimer's research. Specifically, they have discovered that the protein tangles which are a hallmark of the disease involve at least three different proteins rather than just one.

2 Nov 2011

Astex to present data on direct acting antiviral agents against HCV at 62nd AASLD meeting

Astex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a pharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery, development and commercialization of novel therapeutics, announced that it will present data on its novel, first-in-class direct acting antiviral agents (DAA) against Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) in San Francisco, November 4-8, 2011.

31 Oct 2011

Researcher's compound disables bacteria instead of killing them

After 70 years, antibiotics are still the primary treatment for halting the spread of bacterial infections. But the prevalence of antibiotic resistance is now outpacing the rate of new drug discovery and approval. A microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) has discovered a different approach: Instead of killing the bacteria, why not disarm them, quashing disease without the worry of antibiotic resistance?

29 Oct 2011