Latest News

  • New Genetic Sequencing Lab Creates “Tipping Point” For Personalised Cancer Care In UK
    A new genetic profiling laboratory that will pioneer a quick and cost-effective new tumour test will give doctors a better chance of identifying the right treatment for UK cancer patients and increase access to clinical trials for the latest therapies.
  • Successful Vaccine Developments Aat Themis Bioscience
    The Viennese biotech boutique Themis has reported rapid progress in the development of two highly efficient vaccines against Dengue and Chikungunya fever. In the just concluded preclinical studies, the two vaccine candidates, based on a technology by the Parisian Pasteur Institute, displayed exceedingly good efficacy. With a single vaccination against Chikungunya it was possible to develop full vaccination protection. The Dengue fever vaccine candidate proved effective against all of the four known serotypes of this infection. On the basis of these excellent results, Themis will start the clinical phase I study for both vaccines before the end of this year.
  • Researchers ask “Can Sodium bicarbonate improve Quality of Life in Chronic Kidney Disease?”
    Researchers from the University of Dundee and NHS Tayside are to lead a £1.2million UK-wide project, funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) Programme, to investigate the role of Sodium bicarbonate in improving physical function and quality of life for older people with advanced Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).
  • Fresh hope for thousands of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) sufferers who cannot tolerate the most common treatment for this debilitating disease
    Data published today in The Lancet show that over 50% of RA patients can achieve low disease activity or remission with RoActemra, compared to under 20% of those treated with the most widely prescribed anti-TNF Humira when neither drug is combined with methotrexate (51.5% vs. 19.8%, assessed by DAS28 =3.2*). The study exposed a wealth of data indicating the superiority of RoActemra over Humira, with almost four times as many patients achieving disease remission with RoActemra alone, compared to Humira alone (39.9% vs. 10.5%, assessed by DAS28 <2.6*) and almost twice as many patients achieve a 70% improvement in the signs and symptoms of their disease (32.5% vs. 17.9%, assessed by ACR70**).
  • Rush scientists identify Buphenyl as a possible drug for Alzheimer’s disease
    Buphenyl, an FDA-approved medication for hyperammonemia, may protect memory and prevent the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Hyperammonemia is a life-threatening condition that can affect patients at any age. It is caused by abnormal, high levels of ammonia in the blood.
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Podcasts

  • Evotec strengthens and expands its Alliance Business
    Dr Mark Ashton is Executive Vice President, Business Development of Evotec and is responsible for Evotec's commercial and partnering activities. Prior to assuming responsibility for Business Development in 2005, Dr Ashton held a number of positions within Operations at Evotec: He joined the Company in 1995 as one of the initial employees of the Discovery Division, becoming Department Manager in 2001, Director of Chemistry Services in 2002 and taking over responsibility for Evotec's Discovery Services Division in 2004, where he had responsibility for Evotec's screening, parallel synthesis and medicinal chemistry operations. During his time at Evotec, Dr Ashton has managed a wide range of pharmaceutical and biotechnology related projects, including medicinal chemistry projects, design and synthesis of screening libraries and technology transfer projects and has been involved in the progression of a number of drug candidates into the clinic in numerous therapeutic areas. Dr Ashton has authored and co-authored a number of peer reviewed papers, articles and book chapters in addition to being named on a number of pharmaceutical patents. He is trained as a medicinal chemist. Prior to joining Evotec, Dr Ashton also had spells at ICI Pharmaceuticals and Organon Laboratories. Mark Whittaker is Senior Vice President Drug Discovery at Evotec where he manages a large drug discovery collaboration and the groups of computational chemistry and structural biology. Before joining Evotec in 2001, Mark spent 13 years at British Biotech Pharmaceuticals where he led a number of medicinal chemistry programmes and was latterly Director of Chemistry. At British Biotech, Mark contributed to the discovery and development of six compounds that have progressed into human clinical trials. Before his career at British Biotech, Mark carried out post-doctoral research at the University of Oxford and at York University, Toronto and obtained a D. Phil in Chemistry from the University of York.
  • The Ubiquitin Story
    In this podcast interview with Drug Discovery Today, Nobel Prize winner Professor Aaron Ciechanover will talk about his career, his Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the UPS, and the extraordinary opportunities and challenges for drug discovery in this area.
  • Califf, Behrman and Kramer discuss the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative.
    Download the Califf, Behrman and Kramer podcast as an mp3 file
  • Dr Brent Vose outlines AstraZeneca's oncology pipeline.
    Download the Dr. Brent Vose podcast as an mp3 file
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Webinars

  • The Promise of Epigenetics in Early Stage Drug Discovery
    Epigenetic targets are exciting to drug discovery scientists because they hold great potential across a wide spectrum of therapeutic areas. The field of epigenetics focuses on the investigation of enzymes that alter gene expression through modification of their target substrates, usually through the addition or removal of methyl or acetyl groups. High-throughput assays to identify agents capable of modifying the action of such enzyme targets has, in the past, proven to be challenging due to the relatively small molecular alterations in addition to the possibility of sequential modifications, leading to multiple end products. As such, high-throughput bioassays that allow the direct, concurrent quantification of multiple modification states are attractive. The RapidFire platform enables high-throughput mass spectrometric analysis of native molecules from in vitro reactions by performing on-line desalting in seconds, as opposed to HPLC, which requires minutes. Moreover, the RapidFire system can be connected to any mass spectrometer providing unparalleled versatility in reaction detection.
  • Integrated Quant / Qual for In-vivo Discovery Bioanalysis using Hybrid Quadrupole-Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry
    Ultra high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled with orthogonal acceleration hybrid quadrupole-time-of-flight (QqTOF) mass spectrometry is an emerging technique offering new strategies for the efficient screening of new chemical entities (NCE) and related molecules at the early discovery stage within the pharmaceutical industry.
  • Drug Delivery: enabling technology for discovery and development
    The integration of pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic parameters in non clinical pharmacology studies is a key aspect in drug discovery for efficacy and safety assessment, in the particular for the translation from the non clinical to the clinical field. Modeling the profile of plasma exposure achieved with the intended therapeutic route often requires the use of intravenous infusion. In addition, in most cases infusion parameters (infusion rate, volume, duration and sequences) need to be customized to achieve the appropriate pattern of plasma drug exposure. When pharmacodynamic parameters are recorded by telemetry, the use of implantable pumps rather than external pumps is necessary to preserve the improvement in physiological data recording offered by telemetry.
  • Part 2: How has HR-MS technology fundamentally changed the way we study drug biotransformation and disposition?
    AB SCIEX is proud to present the 2nd installment of a Global 4-Part Live Webinar Series exploring novel and dynamic workflows for Metabolite Identification & Drug Metabolism solutions as it pertains to the 4 main stages of the drug discovery and development paradigm, Lead Discovery, Late Stage Discovery, Early Development and Late Stage Development. Part 2 of this webinar series will focus on how HRMS technology has fundamentally changed the way metabolite biotransformations are investigated in Lead Discovery.
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