Biologicals Are the Low Hanging Fruit of Genomics-Based Target Discovery

From TranscriptionalProfileto Drug in Four Years—Jules Verne 

Normally, it takes more than 10 years to develop a new medicine. Therefore, to go from a transcriptional profile of a pathological sample to a drug in four years sounds like fiction written by Jules Verne or Isaac Asimov. 

However, therapeutic antibodies to selectively expressed, genomics-or proteomics-provided targets, such as antigens in tumors, enter clinical trials for many cancer forms very rapidly. One makes humanized or human antibodies, by different methods, which either carry something or act on their own. These are safe. They are often efficacious. But they are difficult to administer you have to inject them. They work in small indications, and they are perfect for small companies. The first Biotech company to make money in San Diego, IDEC Pharmaceuticals, did just this quite successfully, well enough later to buy Biogen and move to Boston in 2003. 

therapeutic antibodies are a class of drug therapy in which transcriptional profiling and proteomics have provided the targets, which are then used as antigens. 

BiologicalsAre the Low Hanging Fruit of Genomics-Based Target Discovei  

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Biologicals are the low hanging fruit of genomics-based target discovery. For example, if disease association were found with tumor necrosis factor (TNF- ) or interleukin (IL-1) expression, then the procedure would be to test a TNF- or IL-1 antagonist in that disease. However, since TNF- and IL-1 can stimulate each other, the new marketing battle for rheumatoid... 

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