Internal Medicine

Although it’s no mystery to cancer drug discovery researchers that coagulation and coagulation proteins impact on angiogenesis, trying to make a therapy based on that knowledge has been the tricky part. But EntreMed Inc., a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases, and Affymax Inc., which works in the area of discovery and development of novel peptide drugs, think they may be on the road to circumventing that problem, based on preclinical data regarding novel peptides they co-developed.

Perlegen Sciences Inc. announced a new four-year research pact with Pfizer whereby researchers from both companies will conduct whole-genome studies involving DNA samples from clinical trials.

As a Canadian, acclimatized to a wide variety of weather conditions, I must admit that I had always thought that seasonal effective disorder (SAD) was largely a myth,

Whenever an old boss of mine wanted to tell the staff something that he felt would rock our world, revolutionize science publishing, and bring world peace, he would always start his oration with a reference to the movie The Graduate.

A new combination of automated nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) tools offers research chemists new methods for understanding and evaluating the compounds they create.

Gene Logic Inc. announced last month that it had entered into a drug repositioning and development agreement with Roche that will seek to find alternative therapeutic uses for drug candidates that have failed in late stage trials for their initial indications. All compounds that are part of the deal successfully passed Phase I but were discontinued in Phase II or Phase III trials.

The total U.S. proteomics sample preparation market was $41.6 million in 2004 according to a recently-released report

Astex Therapeutics announced in early December a new strategic alliance with Novartis focused on the research, development and commercialization of novel cell cycle control drugs for the treatment of cancers and other human diseases. The agreement grants Novartis a worldwide license to Astex’s novel oral cell cycle inhibitor, AT9311, currently completing IND-enabling preclinical studies, and an option for a global license to Astex’s parenteral cell cycle inhibitor, AT7519, currently in Phase 1 clinical trials. AT7519 and AT9311 were both discovered using Astex’s proprietary fragment-based drug discovery platform, Pyramid.

At the recent Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, researchers at Biogen Idec and Yale University Medical School described a new method that may slow and possibly reverse the effects of Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s is one of a handful of neurodegenerative disorders that has seen a dramatic increase in prevalence as Western populations age.

Eidogen-Sertanty, a computational drug discovery solutions provider, announced recently that it has entered into a collaborative service project with KAI Pharmaceuticals, a South San Francisco, Calif.-based drug discovery company focused on the development of Protein Kinase C (PKC) modulators for a variety of diseases—particularly cardiovascular disease.