Drug Repositioning? Why?

I have obtained an invitation to webinar:  Drug Repositioning Through Phenotypic Screening. The subtitle to the event is just mind-bursting: Engineering Serendipity. It is not a joke! It is a little bit too ambitious, isn’t it? Well, what is summarized in introduction?

The pharmaceutical industry is facing a crisis of unprecedented proportion. Approval rates for new medicines have been declining over the past several years despite increases in R&D spending, and, if recent data (2008 - 2010) are any indication of future performance, >80% of candidate agents entering Phase II clinical trials will fail. At that point, the sponsor will have invested ~$300 - $500 million in the development of that agent. Between 2009 and 2014, approximately one third of the total pharmaceutical industry's revenue will lose patent protection. In light of these stressors, finding an alternate indication for failed clinical candidates is a strategy that might address many of these issues.

This presentation attempts to demonstrate the value of a non-biased, phenotypic screening strategy for drug repositioning. Several case studies are offered and some ideas are put forth for how this approach might be economically applied to failed clinical candidates.

In simple words it basically means that modern paradigm (which is “targeted” with HTS and other BS) is not efficient. I would say more frankly – it is dead. What the industry has to do? Just go back to the basics, to phenotypic screening! I have already written a lot about the situation and the reasons of this mess.

Let’s go back to the webinar:

Key Learnings

•                          Understand the impact of clinical trial failures and business pressures on productivity.

•                          Gain an understanding of the utility of phenotypic screening in drug discovery.

•                          Develop an appreciation for phenotypic screening as a repositioning strategy.

•                          Reconcile non-hypothesis testing with the scientific method.

Key word here is “non-hypothesis testing”. Once again – this is not a joke, the authors are dead serious! Do you know the message with the use of the term “non-hypothesis testing”? It means that all “targeted” hypotheses failed! J