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Recent progress in the discovery, development and evaluation of new drugs and combination regimens for drug-resistant tuberculosis through greater collaboration between industry, donors and academia provides renewed hope for overcoming the challenges in tuberculosis treatment.
In 2014, the Illuminating the Druggable Genome programme was launched to promote the exploration of currently understudied but potentially druggable proteins. This article discusses how the systematic collection and processing of a wide array of biological and chemical data as part of this programme has enabled the development of evidence-based criteria for tracking the target development level of human proteins, which indicates a substantial knowledge deficit for approximately one out of three proteins in the human proteome. It also highlights the nature of the unexplored therapeutic opportunities for major protein families.
Existing kinase inhibitor drugs predominantly target receptor tyrosine kinases in cancer. Here, Gray and Ferguson review novel kinase targets in oncology, degenerative diseases, inflammatory disorders and infectious diseases. Advances in medicinal chemistry, selectivity profiling and computer-aided drug design, which are enabling the design of improved kinase inhibitors, are discussed.
The FDA could soon approve the first drug developed explicitly for a tissue-agnostic cancer indication, but biological complexity may limit this approach.
Fiona Marshall — co-founder of Heptares, former chief scientific officer of Sosei and soon to be lead of Merck & Co.'s new research facility in London — looks back on 30 years of GPCRs, and looks forward to the emerging therapeutic opportunities these targets still offer.
With Alnylam's rare disease drug candidate patisiran nearing the regulatory finish line, the RNA interference community is now turning its attention to next-generation delivery technology to solidify the future of the emerging modality.
A pioneering Merck & Co.-funded study is set to explore the ability of the microbiome to boost immuno-oncology therapy outcomes, and other companies are quickly gearing up to enter this clinical space.