Leading lights in pharma innovation
Innovation – it’s everywhere in the pharmaceutical sector. Sometimes it’s a small step or an accidental finding. More often it's continued effort into drug development, delivery or research that leads to the constant stream of new products and formulations
Joint forces: Big Pharma signs up to Parkinson’s consortium
Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck and other Big Pharma companies have signed up to a consortium aimed at accelerating the development of safe and effective therapies for Parkinson’s.
The Critical Path for Parkinson’s consortium was formed by Parkinson’s UK and Critical Path Institute (C-Path) to increase investment into research and development of new Parkinson’s treatments.
The consortium will bring together academics and industry members including AbbVie, Biogen, Eli Lilly and Company and UCB to share data, expertise and resources to promote and develop new treatments for Parkinson’s, according to Parkinson’s UK.
Arthur Roach, director of research at Parkinson’s UK, said: “Despite significant advances in our understanding of the genetics, biochemistry and pathology of Parkinson’s, the development of new treatments has not kept pace.
“Investing in clinical trials for brain disorders currently carries a high cost and high risk of failure. As the world’s largest patient-led Parkinson’s charity, we know that people living with conditions such as Parkinson’s have often been disappointed when drugs that showed significant promise early on failed in late stage testing.
“We see the consortium as a crucial part of strategies to develop new treatments that work at the earliest stage of the condition, with the goal of slowing its progression and eventually finding a cure.”
Team TB: Bayer teams up to tackle TB
Bayer has teamed up with the Universities of Dundee and Cape Town (UCT) to develop new treatments for tuberculosis (TB).
TB is still one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world killing 1.5 million people globally each year.
The trio are members of the Tuberculosis Drug Accelerator (TBDA), a programme aiming to identify novel therapies to reduce the treatment time for TB. The collaboration will optimise hits from the Bayer compound library that were identified within TBDA, developing them into potential preclinical drug candidates.
The Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) at the University of Dundee and UCT’s Drug Discovery and Development Centre (H3D) are two of the leading centres for drug discovery globally.
Paul Wyatt, director of the DDU, said: “The collaboration with UCT and Bayer will expand our TB effort, taking us from early stage drug discovery to more advanced design, synthesis and testing to identify potential drug candidates.”
Future investment: AstraZeneca funds robotic drug
AstraZeneca has invested in Rani Therapeutics’ robotic platform that converts injectable drugs into pills.
Rani has developed a technology platform to convert injectable drugs such as TNF-alpha Inhibitors, interleukin antibodies and basal insulin among others into pills
The robotic pill consists of an ingestible polymer and tiny hollow needles made of sugar that are designed to safely deliver drugs to the small intestine, according to the Wall Street Journal.
With its latest round of funding, the company's total investment is more than $70 million and has come from companies including AstraZeneca, Novartis, Google Ventures, Buttonwood, GF Ventures, KPC Pharmaceuticals, InCube Ventures and VentureHealth, among others.
Super group: Can cancer drugs reverse antibiotic resistance?
The Antibiotic Research UK (ANTRUK) charity has launched a research programme to test whether existing therapies for the treatment of medical conditions can reverse the antibiotic resistance of superbugs.
ANTRUK’s programme will challenge the rise in antibiotic resistant bacteria (superbugs) by screening antibiotic resistance breakers against antibiotic resistance in Gram-negative bacteria.
ANTRUK’s programme will challenge the rise in antibiotic resistant bacteria (superbugs) by screening antibiotic resistance breakers against antibiotic resistance in Gram-negative bacteria.
The charity has asked scientific organisations and universities to submit tenders for this testing to see if therapies already in use and being safely administered in humans can be co-administered with antibiotics.
Colin Garner, ANTRUK chief executive, said: “Our Antibiotic Resistance Breaker programme could potentially find new ways of extending the life of our existing antibiotics at a fraction of the cost and time compared to conventional drug development”.
David Brown, chair of ANTRUK’s scientific and technical advisory committee, said: “Our committee has been developing this programme for the past 12 months.
“I believe it offers the possibility of finding new antibiotic therapies to meet our goal of bringing one into clinic by the early 2020’s. The charity is delighted to be starting real research now”.
Blow your mind: Cancer-targeting ‘grenades’
Researchers have developed cancer drug-packed ‘grenades’ armed with heat sensitive triggers, allowing for treatment to be targeted directly at tumours.
The team based at The University of Manchester has been developing liposomes – small, bubble-like structures built out of cell membrane that are used as packages to deliver molecules into cells – to carry drugs into cancer cells. The challenge, as with any treatment, is to direct the liposomes and their payload directly to tumours while sparing healthy tissue.
The team based at The University of Manchester has been developing liposomes – small, bubble-like structures built out of cell membrane that are used as packages to deliver molecules into cells – to carry drugs into cancer cells. The challenge, as with any treatment, is to direct the liposomes and their payload directly to tumours while sparing healthy tissue.
The team has taken a step closer to solving this problem by fitting liposomes with a heat-activated trigger. By slightly heating tumours in the lab and in mouse models, the researchers have been able to control when the pin is pulled so that the cancer-killing ‘grenades’ release the drug and target the cancer.
In the mix: Implant delivers chemo cocktail directly to cancer tumours
An implantable device delivers treatment for pancreatic cancer directly to tumours, bypassing bloodstream and limiting widespread side effects, according to The University of North Carolina (UNC).
A team of researchers from UNC has shown that the device can deliver a particularly toxic dose of drugs directly to pancreatic tumours to stunt their growth or in some cases shrink them.
A team of researchers from UNC, including Jen Jen Yeh and Joseph DeSimone, has shown that the device can deliver a particularly toxic dose of drugs directly to pancreatic tumours to stunt their growth or in some cases shrink themUNC has also said that this approach would also spare the patient toxic side effects.
Jen Jen Yeh, researcher, said: "We use the device to hit the primary tumour hard. It’s an exciting approach because there is so little systemic toxicity that it leaves room to administer additional drugs against cancer cells that may have spread in the rest of the body.”
The work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlights the cocktail Folfirinox, a combination of four chemotherapy drugs that UNC said has been shown to shrink tumours or halt their growth in nearly a third of pancreatic cancer patients.
The new device currently tested in mice, delivers the drugs directly to the tumour, providing an alternative to sending this toxic cocktail through the bloodstream and UNC said this limits harsh effects throughout the rest of the body.