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Mass Spectrometry In-Depth Focus 2012

25 April 2012 | By

In this free to view Mass Spectrometry In-Depth Focus: Mass spectrometry in drug discovery - Proteomics, small molecules and metablomics; Quantification of membrane drug transporters and application in drug discovery and development; Mass spectrometry leaders roundtable...

New year, old challenges!

28 February 2012 | By Michael J. Miller, President, Microbiology Consultants, LLC

This is the first of many articles in our continuing series on Rapid Microbiological Methods that will appear in European Pharmaceutical Review during 2012. For the past two years, I have enjoyed sharing with you a broad range of topics associated with the validation and implementation of rapid microbiological methods…

Targeted therapy in metastatic melanoma

28 February 2012 | By Janina Staub and Jochen Utikal, Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology, University Medical Center Mannheim, University of Heidelberg & Skin Cancer Unit, German Cancer Research Center

During the last few years, significant improvements in the treatment of metastatic melanoma were reported, targeting molecules involved in the pathogenesis of melanoma. Different clinical trials were able to prove a prolonged overall survival by introducing new therapeutic agents. Hereby an imunomodulating therapy with the anti-CTLA-4 antibody ipilimumab has been…

MRI in drug discovery

28 February 2012 | By Peter R. Allegrini, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

MRI is widely used for clinical diagnosis as well as in research areas such as preclinical drug discovery, clinical development and also in therapy monitoring. MRI allows non-invasive acquisition of tomographic images of soft tissue with high resolution and contrast. Furthermore, its ability to assess organ function in a broad…

Conformational Bias: A key concept for protein kinase inhibition

28 February 2012 | By Henrik Möbitz, Global Discovery Chemistry, Computer Aided Drug Design, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and Doriano Fabbro, Expertise Platform Kinases, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research

Protein kinases act as molecular switches with remarkable plasticity and dynamics upon interaction with specific regulatory domains as well as modulators. Conformation provides a conceptual framework for understanding many aspects of kinase biology. The kinase domain has precise structural prerequisites for signal transfer and can oscillate between two major conformations:…

Recent developments in the use of LCMS in process pharmaceutical chemistry

28 February 2012 | By Dr. Florence O. McCarthy, Department of Chemistry, Analytical and Biological Chemistry Research Facility, University College Cork

Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (LCMS) is a powerful technique that has recently undergone exponential growth in its application to pharmaceutical synthesis. This perspective will outline the general principles of LCMS, detail some recent approaches and the benefits to be derived from its use at an early stage of process development.…

Near Infrared supplement 2012

27 February 2012 | By

In this Near Infrared supplement: Understanding external factor influences and the right use of chemometrics; Recent advances in spectroscopic measurements applied to pharmaceutical testing; Discover what vendor companies are discussing in our Near Infrared Spectroscopy Leaders Roundtable...

PAT supplement 2011

15 December 2011 | By

In this PAT supplement: The historical development of the FDA's PAT initiative and its present course; Implementation of modelling approaches in the QbD framework: Examples from the Novartis experience; Challenges in development and implementation of spectroscopic techniques as PAT Analysers...

Detection of microorganisms using micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)

13 December 2011 | By Michael J. Miller, President, Microbiology Consultants

This is the sixth and final article in our series on Rapid Microbiological Methods (RMMs) that have appeared in European Pharmaceutical Review during 2011. In our last article, we reviewed the world of nucleic acid amplification technologies, including PCR-DNA amplification, RNA-based reverse-transcriptase amplification, 16S rRNA typing and gene sequencing for…

Drug discovery leaders roundtable

13 December 2011 | By Andrew A. Parsons, Vice President Preclinical Drug Development, GlaxoSmithKline and Steve Street, Vice President, Head of Research Centres of Emphasis, Head of WRD Continuous Improvement, Pfizer and William Strohl, Vice President of Biologics Research, Centocor R&D, a division of Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development and Eckhard von Keutz, Senior Vice President, Head Global Early Development, Bayer HealthCare

External economic pressures have been identified as the major driver for the pharmaceutical outsourcing market. Over and above the fiscal advantages of adopting this strategy, what other benefits and indeed risks do you see associated with this approach? Steve Street: We definitely began our out - sourcing efforts based on…

Discovery and validation of biomarkers for multiple sclerosis

13 December 2011 | By Ole Pless and Sheraz Gul, European ScreeningPort GmbH

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease leading to a chronic inflammation and degeneration of the central nervous system. It is one of the major neurological diseases with approximately 2.5 million suffering patients worldwide. Until now, the underlying mechanisms have not been fully elucidated, but the cause of the disease…

Status and challenges in structure-based drug discovery for G protein-coupled receptors

13 December 2011 | By Henri Xhaard, Head of Computational Drug Discovery Group, Centre for Drug Research, University of Helsinki

The central location of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) at the interface between the interior and exterior of cells, as well as their key role in signalling events, make GPCRs a prominent class of pharmaceutical targets. To date, approximately 40 per cent of known drugs are thought to act on GPCRs…

Implementing electronic laboratory notebooks to improve the efficiency of pre-clinical drug discovery

13 December 2011 | By Sheraz Gul, Vice President and Head of Biology, European ScreeningPort GmbH

The pre-clinical phase of drug discovery spans a period in the region of five years and requires contributions from multi-disciplinary teams often working at different sites. These teams can generate significant amounts of data which are processed using standard as well as specialist software. The recording of a substantial amount…