Collaboration between Academia and Industry Giants for Optimisation of Drug Discovery Efforts

The current trend in the pharmaceutical industry for drug development has been, to work solely on a project/drug. The companies hired people to develop a drug right from the scratch and this have resulted in loss of resources and also time. This method was probably adopted to ensure complete privacy on the current development in the organisation and to avoid competition, but they missed the fact that there was duplication of work occurring within the industry and academia. This also resulted in some of them working on a target that was already studied and found not to be useful.

In a meeting in Toronto, Canada on the 16th February 2011, that had attendees from the industry, academia and funding organisations, Chas Bountra, mentioned that the main drawback in the current methodology of the drug development was the parallel work being carried out in the industry. He is trying to get a method in place that would reduce the duplication.(LINK1, LINK2)

Now these giants are being advised to assign the basic research and study work to academia or smaller organisation, allowing them to concentrate on trails and development of the drug (some already following it). This is result in quicker and successful deliver of these medicines to the public.

The model proposed by Chas Bountra, head of the Structural Genomics Consortium(SGC) at the University of Oxford, UK, looks at the collaboration between the large companies and academia. In this scheme, academia plays a crucial role during the initial stages.  The initial research carried out by the academic scientist would be funded by both funding organisations and the pharmaceutical industry. The large companies would compete for the successful drug candidates at the later stage of drug development.

Such similar schemes are being discussed in many parts of scientific research. many government funding bodies are trying methods that would increase the return on the investment in research. How beneficial the outcome of such schemes would be to the people waiting for treatment, is something to wait and watch.

Alternate approaches to HIV treatment

In my earlier blog, I had written about alternative approaches of drug discovery for HIV infections. I recently read a blog about engineered E.coli that could solve Sudoko puzzle, (of all things !!!!). The writer feels that the organisms used in the experiment can no longer be called bacteria or virus due to the huge amount of engineering done to them. This made me think if it was possible to use such engineered organisms to tackle the HIV challenge.

All of my ideas are currently in a theoretical stage. I feel that further study and research into these arenas will reveal a promising solution to the HIV situation.

HIV Treatment - Integrase as target

The mutations in HIV leading to drug resistance has made treatment of HIV-1 infection challenging. I wonder, if alternative approaches can be explored to control HIV infections and simultaneously handle the mutations issue.

In my opinion, HIV-1 Integrase is a better target than Protease and Reverse Trancriptase, the other two viral enzyme. The lack of human homologue and the vital role the enzyme Integrase plays in the development of HIV, leads me to this opinion. Raltegravir and Elvitegravir, the two drugs developed to control HIV by targeting the Integrase enzyme have been somewhat successful in controlling the virus. However, the rapid rate of mutations in HIV has resulted in the organism building resistance to these drugs as well.

I am mulling the possibility of developing a drug that can inhibit the integration of viral DNA with the target DNA by blocking the target DNA’s availability. I am assuming that the failure of integration and further replication of the viral DNA should lead to the disintegration of the virus. The challenge here is to identify a methodology that would release the target DNA when the viral DNA is disintegrated and make sure that there is no viral DNA left to integrate to the released Target DNA.

I am sure there are others out there who are already working on these thoughts, and I would love to hear your opinion.