Biologics are the future of drug development

Drug development expenses have been going up while FDA approvals of new drug treatments have been going down. We know more about biology now than in the past so this increased understanding should make us more efficient and effective at finding new and improved treatments. This could be a low hanging fruit problem where we found the easier treatments and new treatment are getting harder to find. One of the main problems stopping new drug treatment approvals is side effects.

To develop new drugs we identify a gene->protein target in a disease pathway, develop an assay that measures the activity of the gene->protein and test chemicals that down regulate or up regulate the gene target that affect other genes->proteins as little as possible. Finding a chemical compound that only affects the target and nothing else is quite difficult.

A non-repetitive sequence of 20-25 nucleic acid base pairs is unique in the human genome. This means a biologic drug like an siRNA, anti-sense RNA or gene therapeutic is our best method to uniquely target a single gene and best chance to reduce side effects of new treatments.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Most efficient ways to build fitness

Some of the most efficient ways to exercise are weight lifting about 24 repetitions of each exercise to complete exhaustion and interval training like some kind of sprinting. Lower weight higher repetition weight lifting (meaning about 24 reps) done to complete muscle exhaustion (lift until you can't lift a single time more) can actually build muscle even faster low repetition with a heavier weight. A study on this is here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012033 N. A. Burd, et al. “Low-Load High Volume Resistance Exercise Stimulates Muscle Protein Synthesis More Than High-Load Low Volume Resistance Exercise in Young Men,” PLoS ONE, vol. 5, no. 8, p. e12033, 2010. Interval training works so well partly because you move fast turning on more fibers. Each muscle fiber in a skeletal muscle either contracts fully or not at all. You lift heavier weights or move faster by contracting/engaging more muscle fibers. So fast motions in interval training
Read more

Air pollution, diabetes, global warming - same problem

Air pollution, diabetes, global warming  and are highly related problems. Much of our air pollution comes from how much we drive everywhere. This air pollution includes CO2 driving global warming. Our traffic clogged streets and towns make it hazardous to walk so we don't walk and we put on weight and develop diabetes. I am a die hard cyclist and walk commuter and live right by a shopping center that I can see from my apartment but even I never cycle or walk there because the entire center is a parking lot and I would probably get ran over. If we rebuilt are towns and cities for walking we would walk more, reduce air pollution, global warming and diabetes all at the same time.
Read more

Academy and industry growing the science pie

Like anyone who has worked in the commercial biotechnology science industry I have also spent time in academic science research in graduate school. There is definitely some rift between the two worlds of science. I find industry often doesn't know what is going on in nearby academic science centers, and academic science centers often don't want them to know because they think industry will steal their ideas just when they start working (There could be some truth to this.). The two science worlds should work closer together to grow the science pie. The government invests in academic research to improve health, improve the environment, improve lives and stimulate the economy and stimulating the economy is getting top billing now. Government investment is a fixed amount allocated each year. Academic scientists write grants to compete for their share of the pie. When one scientist wins another loses. Industry starts with basic science and applies it to problems (like diseases) to
Read more