New Hope for Treating Rare Genetic Disease
Posted on: Monday, 22 August 2005, 21:00 CDT
A new public-private partnership may reportedly provide a mechanism for developing drugs to treat rare genetic diseases.
Such drugs are relatively rare because of their low return on investment. But the European Rare Diseases Therapeutic Initiative might remedy the situation.
In an article in the open access international medical journal PLoS Medicine, Alain Fischer, chief of the department of pediatric immunology at the Necker University Hospital in Paris and colleagues describe how ERDITI brings drug companies and academic researchers together to find new treatments for rare diseases.
The thousands of compounds that have been developed by pharmaceutical companies for more common diseases, but that were abandoned or failed to achieve registration for several reasons -- such as biopharmaceutical properties, toxicity, lack of efficacy, or strategic reasons -- represent a treasure worth exploiting, said the authors.
The idea behind ERDITI is that drug companies give the abandoned compounds to academic researchers who then investigate whether the compounds might be effective for treating rare diseases.
Companies benefit from the relationship with academia in many ways, including the fact the research might lead to the discovery of drugs for the treatment of more common diseases, which could be highly profitable to industry.
Source: United Press International
Related Articles
- Medarex Announces Allowance of Investigational New Drug Application for Company's First Antibody-Drug Conjugate, MDX-1203
- Innovations in Cardiovascular Disease Management: Latest Surgical Procedures, Drugs and Medical Devices
- Health Plans and Disease Management Companies Are Seeking To Reduce the Use of the ER for Non-Urgent Care - Urgent Emergency Room Usage October 18, 2006 Audio Conference on CD-ROM
- Xechem Announces ``Notice of Allowance'' for a Patent Relating to a Method of Treating Sickle Cell Disease With 5-HMF Compound Licensed From VCU
- To Combat Often Fatal Orphan Diseases, a Small Pharmaceutical Company Leads New Drug Investigation
- Levodopa Remains the Best at Treating Parkinson's Disease As There Are Few Drugs That Match Its Success
- Koronis Pharmaceuticals to Participate in Panel 'Infectious Disease: Next Wave of HIV Drugs' at BIO CEO & Investor Conference
- Pharmaceutical Companies Are Moving Drug Ads Off of Network Television and Onto Other Channels, Such As the Internet
- Callisto Pharmaceuticals' CEO to Discuss Company's Anti-Cancer Drug Candidates on Tradersnation.Com Broadcast Tomorrow; CEO Dr. Gary Jacob to Discuss Company's Development Pipeline of New Treatments for Cancer, Other Diseases
- Legislation in The United States, Japan, and Europe Provides Financial Incentives to Biopharmaceutical Companies Producing Orphan Drugs
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds