Blog Profile / In the Pipeline
| URL : | http://pipeline.corante.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Medical / Pharmaceutical | |
| Posts on Regator: | 1179 | |
| Posts / Week: | 8.9 | |
| Archived Since: | November 3, 2010 | |
Blog Post Archive
A Little Ranbaxy Example
Compare and contrast. Here we have Krishnan Ramalingam, from Ranbaxy's Corporate Communications department, in 2006: Being a global pharmaceutical major, Ranbaxy took a deliberate decision to pool its resources to fight neglected disease...Show More Summary
Ranbaxy: Looking Under the Rock
Here's an excellent, detailed look from Fortune at how things went off the rails at Ranbaxy and their generic atorvastatin (Lipitor). The company has been hit by a huge fine, and no wonder. This will give you the idea: On May 13, Ranbaxy...Show More Summary
The Atlantic on Drug R&D
"Can you respond to this tripe?" asked one of the emails that sent along this article in The Atlantic. I responded that I was planning to, but that things were made more complicated by my being extensively quoted in said tripe. Anyway,...Show More Summary
And The Award For Clinical Futility Goes To. . .
I was talking with someone the other day about the most difficult targets and therapeutic areas we knew, and that brought up the question: which of these has had the greatest number of clinical failures? Sepsis was my nomination: I know that there have been several attempts, all of which have been complete washouts. Show More Summary
GSK's Published Kinase Inhibitor Set
Speaking about open-source drug discovery (such as it is) and sharing of data sets (such as they are), I really should mention a significant example in this area: the GSK Published Kinase Inhibitor Set. (It was mentioned in the comments to this post). Show More Summary
A Specific Crowdfunding Example
I mentioned Microryza in that last post. Here's Prof. Micheal Pirrung, at UC Riverside, with an appeal there to fund the resynthesis of a compound for NCI testing against renal cell carcinoma. It will provide an experienced post-doc's...Show More Summary
Crowdfunding Research
Crowdfunding academic research might be changing, from a near-stunt to an widely used method of filling gaps in a research group's money supply. At least, that's the impression this article at Nature Jobs gives: The practice has exploded in recent years, especially as success rates for research-grant applications have fallen in many places. Show More Summary
Astellas Closing the OSI and Perseid Sites?
I've heard this morning that Astellas is closing the OSI site in Farmingdale, NY, and the Perseid Therapeutics site in Redwood City, CA. More details as I hear them (and check the comments section; people with more direct knowledge may be showing up in there).
Pyrrolidines, Not the Usual Way
I wanted to mention a new reaction that's come out in a paper in Science. It's from the Betley lab at Harvard, and it's a new way to make densely subsituted saturated nitrogen heterocycles (pyrrolidines, in particular). You start from...Show More Summary
Another Big Genome Disparity (With Bonus ENCODE Bashing)
I notice that the recent sequencing of the bladderwort plant is being played in the press in an interesting way: as the definitive refutation of the idea that "junk DNA" is functional. That's quite an about-face from the coverage of the ENCODE consortium's take on human DNA, the famous "80% Functional, Death of Junk DNA Idea" headlines. Show More Summary
Why Not Share More Bioactivity Data?
The ChEMBL database of compoundshas been including bioactivity data for some time, and the next version of it is slated to have even more. There are a lot of numbers out in the open literature that can be collected, and a lot of numbers inside academic labs. Show More Summary
An Anticoagulant Antidote
Here's a drug-discovery problem that you don't often have to think about. The anticoagulant field is a huge one, with Plavix, warfarin, and plenty of others jostling for a share of a huge market (both for patients to take themselves, and for hospital use). Show More Summary
Merck's Liptruzet: A Cause For Shame?
Vytorin's been discussed several times around here. The combination of Zetia (ezetimibe), the cholesterol absorption inhibitor discovered at Schering-Plough, with Merck's simvastatin looked as if it should be a very effective cholesterol-lowering medication, but the real-world data have been consistentlypuzzling. Show More Summary
Your Brain Shifts Gears
Want to be weirded out? Study the central nervous system. I started off my med-chem career in CNS drug discovery, and it's still my standard for impenetrability. There's a new paper in Science, though, that just makes you roll your eyes...Show More Summary
Total Synthesis in Print
Over at the Baran group's "Open Flask" blog, there's a post on the number of total synthesis papers that show up in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. I'm reproducing one of the figures below, the percentage of JACS papers...Show More Summary
Things I Won't Work With: Dimethylcadmium
Cadmium is bad news. Lead and mercury get all the press, but cadmium is just as foul, even if far fewer people encounter it. Never in my career have I had any occasion to use any, and I like it that way. There was an organocadmium reaction...Show More Summary
Another Germ Theory Victory - Back Pain?
The "New Germ Theory" people may have notched up another one: a pair of reports out from a team in Denmark strongly suggest that many cases of chronic low back pain are due to low-grade bacterial infection. They've identified causative...Show More Summary
An Update on Deuterium Drugs
In case you're wondering how the deuterated-drugs idea is coming along, the answer seems to be "just fine", at least for Concert Pharamaceuticals. They've announced their third collaboration inside of a year, this time with Celgene. And they've got their own compound in development, CTP-499, in Phase II for diabetic nephropathy. Show More Summary
One Case of Plagiarism Down. Two Zillion to Go.
You may remember this case from Chemistry - A European Journal earlier this year, where a paper appeared whose text was largely copy-pasted from a previous JACS paper from another lab. This one has finally been pulled; Retraction Watch...Show More Summary
Ken Frazier at Merck: An Assessment
Here's a fine profile of Merck's Ken Frazier at Forbes. Matthew Herper does a good job of showing the hole that Merck has been slowly sliding into over the past few years, and wonders if Frazier is going to be able to drag the company...Show More Summary