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An attractive strategy to render drug-resistant bacteria susceptible to antibiotics is to inhibit the bacterial efflux pump. Lomovskaya and colleagues review the available structural data on the most effective class of bacterial efflux pumps and discuss current development of small-molecule efflux inhibitors.
Oncology has a higher rate of attrition in clinical development than most other therapeutic areas. Lengauer and colleagues discuss the factors responsible, and suggest strategies to improve the chances of short-term success in the development of novel anticancer drugs.
Genomics promised to revitalize the search for new antibiotics but still no new drug class against a novel target has materialized. Payne and colleagues describe the frustrations of their genomics efforts at GlaxoSmithKline and how this changed their approach to antibacterial R&D.