Research & Development
Biomedical Polymers
Drug delivery and molecular imaging
During the last two decades significant advances have been made in the development of biocompatible polymers as the platform for drug delivery and molecular imaging The idea of using synthetic and natural biocompatible polymers as a platform to improve pharmacokinetics and delivery efficacy of small molecular therapeutic drugs is not new Biomedical...
Strategies for Biosimilar Development: Regulatory Framework and Technical Issues
The Current State of Play
Introduction By biologics are expected to constitute more than of the global pharmaceutical market with some products worth around billion expected to go off patent by Most first wave biologics are already off patent and the first few biosimilars or followon biologics have been approved in Europe The first wave of biosimilars includes produc...
Global Biogenerics Market
Opportunities and Challenges
Biopharmaceuticals can be broadly defined as drug substances obtained from a living organism using biotechnology Typically biopharmaceuticals are large molecules with complex structural features and conformations compared to small molecule drugs In biologic drug sales were about US billion comprising per cent of total drug sales and this number...
Automated Purification of Natural and Synthetic Compounds
Purification of compounds is often the ratelimiting step during the discovery of novel compounds In a typical discovery sequence chemistry can account for as much as percent of the total tasktime Automated flash chromatography systems allow unattended separation of both synthesized compounds and those isolated from natural sources freeing chemists...
Biosimilars
Succeeding in the market of the future
Biosimilars are promising remarkable costsavings for booming healthcare budgets Yet the full potential can only be harvested when a number of significant markets regulatory and clinical hurdles have been overcome globally The European Union EU and its medicines agency the EMEA have successfully addressed the regulatory challenges needed to fulfi...
Assessing the Immunogenicity of Protein Therapeutics
Most therapeutic proteins in clinical trials and on the market are to a variable extent immunogenic Formation of antidrug antibodies poses a risk that should be assessed during drug development as it possibly compromises drug safety and alters drug characteristics including pharmacokinetics and bioavailability The immunogenicity risk assessment...
Developing Cancer Vaccines
Using tumour-associated peptides
The goal of therapeutic cancer vaccines is to activate specialised cells of the immune system like cytotoxic Tcells to specifically destruct the cancer cells leaving the healthy tissues untouched To facilitate this the knowledge of tumourspecific antigens is required and such antigens have to be used in the right context for Tcell activation a proc...
The Next Generation of Recombinant Immunotoxins
Reducing Immunogenicity of the Cytotoxic Part
Todays cancer drugs have considerable side effects caused by offtarget activity Various therapeutic concepts have been developed to improve drug specificity through the use of ligands that bind uniquely to cancer cells Immunotoxins comprise a cellspecific targeting component coupled to a plant or bacterial toxin and many such molecules have been ev...
Pharmacogenomics and Personalised Medicine
Synergy Between the Industry and Academia
Personalised medicine and individualised drug therapy are terms that characterise an evolving goal of therapeutics Although studies in the underlying science that facilitate personalised medicine were primarily initiated by investigators in government and academic laboratories some in the pharmaceutical industry have been active participants or int...
Controlling Infectious Diseases
Evaluation of vaccines
In the recent years many vaccine developments have focussed on therapeutic vaccines However prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases continue to be of major importance The infectious diseases can impact the public health and the socioeconomy People are not aware of the threat of traditional diseases such as whooping cough pertussis or diphther...
