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18 December 2012 | By Theresa LaVallee, Senior Director, Translational Medicine Oncology, MedImmune
The development of biologic therapies has significantly shifted the treatment paradigm in medicine, particularly in oncology. Groundbreaking research over the past 20 years has sparked new ways of thinking about disease pathology and opened the door for novel targeted therapies that have truly revolutionised medical care. In more recent years,…
18 December 2012 | By Dr. Stephen Brown, Sheffield RNAi Screening Facility, Biomedical Sciences, University of Sheffield
As RNA interference (RNAi) enters its teenage years from the first critical observations, it has now reached a multi-billion pound industry. There are few research areas that have expanded as quickly and spectacularly as the field of RNAi. The potential of RNAi initially sparked a functional genomics gold rush. Different…
18 December 2012 | By Matthew A. Cooper and Reena Halai, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, the University of Queensland
In the journey of a molecule from its origins in a compound library to candidate drug status, a large variety of profiling must occur to define activity, selectivity, potency, adverse effects, pharmacology and in vivo efficacy. Advances in biophysical methods that can analyse drug interactions with a molecular target, a…
18 December 2012 | By Sheraz Gul and Gesa Witt, European ScreeningPort GmbH
The histone deacetylase (HDAC) class of enzyme are a group of conserved enzymes known for their ability to remove acetyl groups from lysine residues on histone tails. Since aberrant HDAC enzyme expression is observed in various diseases, there is increasing interest in finding small molecules which function as HDAC enzyme…
18 December 2012 | By Michael J. Miller, President, Microbiology Consultants, LLC
This is the sixth and final paper in our continuing series on Rapid Microbiological Methods (RMM) that have appeared in European Pharmaceutical Review during 2012. As many of you already know, I am keen on staying on top of recent developments in the world of rapid methods, and have used…
18 December 2012 | By Mikael Kubista, Jens Björkman, David Svec and Robert Sjöback, TATAA Biocenter
RNA levels can be measured with very high specificity, sensitivity and accuracy with techniques such as real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR), microarray analysis and next generation sequencing. This makes messenger (m) RNAs and potentially microRNAs and other non-coding RNAs popular as biomarkers. But RNA is less stable and more dynamic than…
18 December 2012 | By Helen Bahia, Editor, European Pharmaceutical Review
John Comer, Chief Scientific Officer at Sirius Analytical, discusses particle size analysis and characterisation. Sirius Analytical was founded in 1989 with the goal to become a world-class manufacturer of innovative instrumentation for chemical analysis. Today, Sirius Analytical makes instruments to measure the physicochemical properties of drugs, specifically pKa, logP, solubility…
In this Drug Targets In-Depth Focus: GPCR allosteric modulation: new opportunities and challenges for drug discovery; Chloride channels and cardiac arrhythmia: novel therapeutic targets?
25 October 2012 | By Michael J. Miller, President, Microbiology Consultants, LLC and Noe Miyashita, Researcher, Hitachi Plant Technologies, Ltd
This is the fifth paper in our continuing series on Rapid Microbiological Methods (RMM) that will appear in European Pharmaceutical Review during 2012. As many of you know, I am always on the lookout for the next generation of rapid microbiological method (RMM) technologies and solutions. In this article, I…
In this qPCR In-Depth Focus: Setting the bar; Q & A - Mikael Kubista from the TATAA Biocenter poses five questions for Jay Brock, Senior Manager, Applications and Technical Support, USB® Life Science Reagents from Affymetrix; Not your grandfathers’ real-time PCR...
In this Non-Destructive Material Identification In-Depth Focus: An implementation perspective on handheld Raman spectrometers for the verification of material identity; Portable Raman spectroscopy for pharmaceutical counterfeit detection; Ask the Experts...
22 October 2012 | By Bahija Jallal, Executive Vice President, Research & Development, MedImmune
The first biologic drug – infliximab (Remicade) – was launched in 1998 with initial sales of USD 500 million per annum. By 2010, Reuters’ top 10 drugs by sales included five biologics (Remicade, Enbrel, Humira, Avastin and Humira) generating around USD 34 billion in revenue, including USD 7.4 billion from…
22 October 2012 | By Mick Mantle, Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology, University of Cambridge
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a technique that is traditionally used as a diagnostic clinical imaging tool. However, there are now an increasing number of non-medial applications where MRI has seen unrivalled success. One of those areas is in its application to pharmaceutical research. The aim of this article is…
22 October 2012 | By Henning Gieseler, Associate Professor at the Division of Pharmaceutics, University of Erlangen & CEO, GILYOS GmbH and Peter Stärtzel, Pharmaceutical Scientist, GILYOS GmbH
The stochastic nature of nucleation during the freezing step of the freeze-drying process has been regarded as a demerit in a process which is considered under rigorous control. The freezing performance of a product can impact its subsequent drying behaviour and the final product quality attributes. Hence, the idea to…
22 October 2012 | By Vinod B. Damodaran and Jessica M. Joslin, Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University and Melissa M. Reynolds, Department of Chemistry and School of Biomedical Engineering, Colorado State University
Biodegradable polymers comprise an important class of biomaterials due to their ability to satisfy short-term requirements for medical applications where a permanent implant is not required. However, current biodegradable polymers suffer from undesirable chemical properties that lead to improper elimination from the body and potentially toxic by-products. Additionally, medical polymers…
