Neurodegenerative disorders: SRC-ABL inhibitors protect motor neurons
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 530 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.144
Author: Sarah Crunkhorn
Currently approved therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by loss of motor neurons — exhibit limited effectiveness. By screening a panel of existing drugs in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived motor neurons from patients with familial ALS, Imamura et (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Sarah Crunkhorn Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Type 2 diabetes: Broccoli extract lowers glucose levels
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 530 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.143
Author: Sarah Crunkhorn
Targeting elevated hepatic glucose production in type 2 diabetes (T2D) represents an attractive therapeutic approach. To investigate this, Axelsson et al. first analyzed liver gene expression in a diabetic mouse model, in combination with other genetic data, to identify a 50-gene liver disease signature. (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Sarah Crunkhorn Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Cardiovascular disease: CRHR2 blockade prevents heart failure
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 530 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.142
Author: Sarah Crunkhorn
Despite improvements in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, the prognosis of heart failure remains poor. To identify potential novel therapeutic targets, Tsuda et al. analyzed G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) expression in mouse cardiomyocytes 2 weeks following transverse aortic constriction (TAC) and identified markedly increased expression (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Sarah Crunkhorn Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Infectious diseases: Soil-sifting snags new antibiotic
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 530 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.141
Author: Katie Kingwell
Multidrug-resistant bacteria pose a considerable public health threat, and new treatment options are urgently needed. Now, Maffioli et al. have identified a nucleoside-analogue inhibitor that targets bacterial RNA polymerase (RNAP) and shows antibacterial activity against drug-resistant pathogens.The authors began by screening a library (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Katie Kingwell Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Cancer: RNA-based approaches target KRAS
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 529 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.137
Author: Sarah Crunkhorn
Activating mutations in the KRAS oncogene commonly occur in human tumours and are associated with cancer initiation, metastasis and poor prognosis. Despite significant effort, direct and specific therapeutic targeting of KRAS has so far proved elusive. Two new papers now report the use (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Sarah Crunkhorn Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Infectious diseases: Decrypting Cryptosporidium
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 527 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.147
Author: M. Teresa Villanueva
Infections that cause diarrhoea — such as cryptosporidiosis, caused by the protozoan parasites Cryptosporidium hominis and Cryptosporidium parvum — are responsible for nearly a million deaths every year, mostly among children in low-income countries as well as immunodeficient patients. Unfortunately, drug development against (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: M. Teresa Villanueva Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Joshua Gordon
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 523 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.134
In September 2016, Joshua Gordon joined the NIH as Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). For Gordon, who was previously a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Columbia University Medical Center, this role presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to oversee a US$1.5 billion budget and shape the future of mental health research. When he started, he said his first order of business would be to listen and learn. One year on, he has heard a lot about the institute's classification of mental illnesses for research purposes (k...
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
Patent watch: Supreme Court decision favours biosimilars
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 521 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.136
Author: Courtenay C. Brinckerhoff
On June 12, 2017, the US Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Sandoz Inc. v. Amgen Inc. (No. 15-1039), providing its first interpretation of the patent dispute resolution provisions of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA). The Court essentially held that (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Courtenay C. Brinckerhoff Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
New cancer vaccines show clinical promise
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 519 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.150
Author: Asher Mullard
Personalized cancer vaccines can help to stave off melanoma, suggested two phase I clinical trials published in Nature. The findings buoyed an emerging field that is using neoantigens — antigens that are unique to each patient's cancer — to prime the immune system to (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Asher Mullard Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
FDA approves first new sickle cell drug in 20 years
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 519 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.149
Author: Asher Mullard
The US FDA approved Emmaus Medical's L-glutamine for sickle cell anaemia, providing the first new drug for these patients in 20 years.Emmaus's drug is an oral, pharmaceutical-grade amino acid. The mechanism of action of the drug is not understood, but it is thought (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Asher Mullard Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
FDA approvals for the first 6 months of 2017
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 519 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.148
Author: Asher Mullard
The US FDA approved 23 new drugs in the first 6 months of 2017 (Table 1). This is more than the agency approved in the entirety of 2016, a lacklustre year with only 22 approvals (Nat. Rev. Drug Discov.16, 73–76; (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Asher Mullard Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
Calls grow to tap the gold mine of human genetic knockouts
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 515 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.139
Author: Asher Mullard
A Human Knockout Project would systematically search for loss-of-function genetic mutations in humans to help uncover new drug targets. (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 31, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Asher Mullard Tags: News and Analysis Source Type: research
Upcoming market catalysts in Q3 2017
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 586 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.138
Author: Sonny Nghiem
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery16, 449 (2017)There was an error in the description of the patient population for the PACIFIC trial of durvalumab. This has been corrected in the html and pdf versions. (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 21, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Sonny Nghiem Tags: Corrigendum Source Type: research
Anticancer therapy: Neutrophils deliver the goods
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 528 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.133
Author: M. Teresa Villanueva
Glioblastoma is a notoriously difficult cancer to treat, partly because its invasive nature makes surgery challenging, and partly because the blood–brain barrier (BBB) impedes the delivery of chemotherapeutics. Delivery of therapeutic agents using endogenous carrier cells is a promising strategy for the treatment of brain (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 21, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: M. Teresa Villanueva Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
Muscle disorders: FGF19 reduces muscle wasting
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 16, 528 (2017).
doi:10.1038/nrd.2017.132
Author: Megan Cully
Muscle wasting can result from numerous conditions, including obesity, sarcopenia and cachexia, as well as long-term glucocorticoid treatment for inflammatory diseases. Writing in Nature Medicine, Benoit and colleagues demonstrate that fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19) can reduce muscle wasting in mice, likely though effects (Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery)
Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery - July 21, 2017 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Megan Cully Tags: Research Highlight Source Type: research
