For Immediate Rewording. Uh, Release.
Here's a nice look at why you should always think about the source of the financial and business information you read. It details the response to a recent Pfizer press release about palbociclib, a CDK inhibitor that's in late clinical trials.
Someone at The Wall Street Journal wrote that it had "the potential. . .to transform the standard of care for post-menopausal women with ER+ and HER2- advanced breast cancer." Problem is, that phrase was lifted directly out of the press release itself (and sure sounds like it), and you really would hope for better from the WSJ. What we're seeing here is actually Pfizer's own spin on ...
Source: In the Pipeline - February 25, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: Cancer Source Type: blogs
ACS Webinars on Drug Discovery
I wanted to mention the ACS Webinar series on Drug Discovery, which will be going on every so often throughout the year. I'm going to be doing the introductory overview one, along with Rick Connell of Pfizer and Nick Meanwell of BMS, this Thursday, 2PM to 3PM EST. As you'll note from the schedule, there are plenty more of these coming up that go into more detail, so we're going to be setting the stage and taking questions from the audience. (Source: In the Pipeline)
Source: In the Pipeline - February 24, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: Blog Housekeeping Source Type: blogs
Big Drug Mergers: So They're OK, Right?
Several people sent along this article from McKinsey Consulting, on "Why pharma megamergers work". They're looking (as you would expect) at shareholder value, shareholder value, and shareholder value as the main measurements of whether a deal "worked" or not. But John LaMattina, who lived through the Pfizer megamerger era and had a ringside seat, would like to differ with their analysis:
The disruption that the integration process causes is immeasurable. Winners and losers are created as a result of the leader selection process. Scars form as different research teams battle over which projects are superior to others. The ...
Source: In the Pipeline - February 24, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: Business and Markets Source Type: blogs
Another Round of Stapled Peptide Wrangling
When we last checked in on the Great Stapled Peptide Wars, researchers from Genentech, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and La Trobe University (the latter two in Australia) had questioned the usefulness and activity of several stapled Bim BH3 peptides. The original researchers (Walensky et al.) had then fired back strongly, pointing out that the criticisms seemed misdirected and directing the authors back to what they thought had been well-documented principles of working with such species.
Now the WEHI/Genentech/La Trobe group (Okamoto et al.) has responded, and it doesn't look like things are going to calm down any ...
Source: In the Pipeline - February 24, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: Chemical Biology Source Type: blogs
Ces3 (Ces1) Inhibition As a Drug Target
Update: the nomenclature of these enzymes is messy - see the comments.
Here's another activity-based proteomics result that I've been meaning to link to - in this one, the Cravatt group strengthens the case for carboxylesterase 3 as a potential target for metabolic disease. From what I can see, that enzyme was first identified back in about 2004, one of who-knows-how-many others that have similar mechanisms and can hydrolyze who-knows-how-many esters and ester-like substrates. Picking your way through all those things from first principles would be a nightmare - thus the activity-based approach, where you look for interes...
Source: In the Pipeline - February 21, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: Biological News Source Type: blogs
Making Arenes React, Via Rhodium
Just Like Cooking has an overview of some interesting new chemistry from the Hartwig group. They're using a rhodium catalyst to directly functionalize aryl rings with silyl groups (which can be used in a number of transformations downstream). One nice thing is that the selectivities are basically the opposite of the direct borylation reactions, so this could open up some isomers that are otherwise difficult to come by.
See Arr Oh makes a good point about the paper, too - it has a lot of detail in it and a lot of information. If you check out the Supplementary Information, there are about thirty pages of further details, a...
Source: In the Pipeline - February 21, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: Chemical News Source Type: blogs
The NIH Takes a Look At How the Money's Spent
The NIH is starting to wonder what bang-for-the-buck it gets for its grant money. That's a tricky question at best - some research takes a while to make an impact, and the way that discoveries can interact is hard to predict. And how do you measure impact, by the way? These are all worthy questions, but here's apparently the way things are being approached:
Michael Lauer's job at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is to fund the best cardiology research and to disseminate the results rapidly to other scientists, physicians, and the public. But NIH's peer-review system, which relies on an army of unpaid volunteer scie...
Source: In the Pipeline - February 20, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: The Scientific Literature Source Type: blogs
Pfizer Seeks Respect
Here's Ian Read of Pfizer, on that company's reputation (and that of pharma in general):
. . .many people — including not only regulators but also legislators and their constituents — have a say in how we can conduct our business. At the same time, many have a great and sometimes emotionally charged interest in what our business produces, what we charge for our products and how we sell them, among other topics. And all of this together shines a brighter light on our business than most others, which makes our reputation all the more important to us. In fact, everything from government reimbursement for our medicines to...
Source: In the Pipeline - February 20, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: Why Everyone Loves Us Source Type: blogs
Robo-Combing the Chemistry Literature For Mistakes
This is a very timely post indeed from Peter Murray-Rust. He's describing a system that his group has developed (ChemVisitor) to dig through the chemical literature looking for incorrect structures (and much more).
He shows examples from an open-access paper, in which one of the structures is in fact misdrawn. But how would Elsevier, Nature, the ACS, Wiley or the other big publishers take to having these things highlighted every day of the week. Not well:
So try it for yourself. Which compound is wrong? (*I* don’t know yet) How would you find out? Maybe you would go to Chemical Abstracts (ACS). Last time I looked it c...
Source: In the Pipeline - February 19, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: The Scientific Literature Source Type: blogs
Back Blogging (Bonus Biographical Begging)
Blogging is now resuming at the usual pace around here, even though I'm actually still off work today and tomorrow, for various reasons. It's snowing merrily out there, anyway, so I'm just as glad not to be doing the commute. We look to get a foot or so of the stuff during the day and tonight, and tomorrow night we're supposed to get down to -11 F (-24 C), which means the only reason I'm going out is to fill the bird feeder.
I spent the holidays lounging around with family, cooking various unhealthy foods, reading a stack of books given to me for Christmas, and writing away on The Chemistry Book. I'm now up to about 140-o...
Source: In the Pipeline - January 2, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: Blog Housekeeping Source Type: blogs
It Just So Happens That I Have A Conference Right Here
Here's a good addition to the "bogus conferences" file. The folks at Retraction Watch have the story of Navin Kabra, an Indian engineer who's blowing the whistle on a racket peculiar to that country.
There are apparently many universities in India that have a requirement that everyone attaining a certain degree has to have their work accepted at an "international conference". So. . .a number of "international conference" organizers have stepped up to fill that market niche, with hefty registration fees and talk of rigorous peer review and high standards. They do nothing of the kind, of course. People pay their cash, pay t...
Source: In the Pipeline - January 2, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: The Dark Side Source Type: blogs
Grading the Drug Companies
Here are Matthew Herper's grades for the big pharma/biotech companies in 2013. The bottom two companies will probably not come as a surprise to readers of this site (or to anyone who's been paying attention). Number One, while a reasonable pick, is one that you could have probably surprised folks with a few years ago. . . (Source: In the Pipeline)
Source: In the Pipeline - January 2, 2014 Category: Chemists Tags: Business and Markets Source Type: blogs
Cold-Weather Chicken Soup
Since the weather forecast around here is for snow, and temperatures down to -9 F (-22 C), I thought a recipe or two for some cold-weather food might be appropriate. Here's a chicken soup recipe adapted from Craig Claiborne that I've been making for twenty years now - that is, it's pretty reliable.
1 chicken (in the 3-to-4 pound or 1.5 kilo range)
Corn (fresh or frozen), about 2 cups or 500 mL volume (or more to taste)
Egg noodles (4 oz. / 0.15 kg or more, depending on taste)
Two hard-boiled eggs
Fresh parsley
Take the chicken, cover it in water, add a teaspoon of salt (6g) and some ground pepper, bring to a boil, then t...
Source: In the Pipeline - December 31, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Blog Housekeeping Source Type: blogs
A Table of Smells, Stinks, And Aromas
From Monash University comes this colorful (and doubtless extremely useful) chart of Smells of Chemistry. See if you agree with its assessments - I think it's broadly correct, but I might be a bit more descriptive in some of the boxes. Although "Unique and Unpleasant" does sum up some of them pretty well, and I do like the boxes marked "Old People", "Seaweed", and "Dead Animals". (Source: In the Pipeline)
Source: In the Pipeline - December 30, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Chemical News Source Type: blogs
A Mystery Chemistry Glassware Kit
A reader sends along this mysterious glassware set, which was donated to a nonprofit that he's working with. They're thinking of selling it on EBay, if they can figure out how to list it and what it is.
Looking at it, the lack of ground-glass joints makes you think "diazomethane kit", but I don't think that's quite right. (What are those gas impinger tubes doing in there, for example?) Kjeldahl apparatus? I haven't seen one in so long that I'm not sure about that, either. If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to take a crack. (Source: In the Pipeline)
Source: In the Pipeline - December 24, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Chemical News Source Type: blogs
