Drug development Flashcards
What are the 5 stages of developing a new drug?
1) Basic research to target selection
2) Pre-clinical research
3) Clinical development
4) Regulatory review
5) Postmarketing surveillance
What does basic research to target selection lead to?
The identification of a target through basic understanding of the disease
Eg. it is known that inhibiting a certain receptor has a certain effect - makes sense to look for antagonists of this receptor
What occurs in pre-clinical research?
Evaluation of drugs in animal models
What occurs in clinical development?
3 phase testing of the drugs in human patients
What are the most common drug targets?
Enzymes
Receptors
Transport proteins
How is a lead target found?
Use the lead target to find the lead compound:
- Clone the lead target
- Using an assay, test many compounds, to test the functional activity of the target (eg. enzymatic activity if the lead target is an enzyme)
- Normally use AUTOMATED screens, which test all the compounds in a chemical library
What is a chemical library?
Why are they used in lead compound selection?
A library of molecules created by combinatorial chemistry:
- Creating MANY compounds which are all related to a ‘parent’ compound
Used in lead compound selection as the different compounds have slightly different shapes/properties
Therefore one may fit better into the lead target
What process is done after the lead compound is selected?
LEAD OPTIMISATION
What is the need for lead optimisation?
1) Improve target specificity (reduced side effects?)
2) Improve potency
3) Improve pharmaceutical and pharmocokinetic problems
(look at potential problems of what the drug may metabolise into)
4) Reduce safety liabilities
What do the steps in pre-clinical development aim to test?
1) Genotoxicity
2) Regulatory safety evaluations
3) Non-clinical safety evaluations
4) Pharmacokinetics
5) General toxicology and animal toxicology
What is genotoxicity?
Testing the destructive effects of the drug on the cells genetic material
What is tested when testing the regulatory safety of a drug?
If the drug has any obvious behavioural effects and effects on the:
1) Respiratory system
2) CV system
3) CNS
Why can the same prediction methods not be used for small molecules and biomolecules?
- Biomolecules have different properties to small molecules
- Many post-translational modifications occur on biomolecules when they are synthesised and this can impact how they are handled in the body
What do biomolecules break-down into?
Why is this advantageous?
Amino acids by proteases
No toxic metabolites
Which takes longer to test: small molecule drugs or biomolecules?
Why?
Small molecules:
- Must test carcinogenicity, genotoxicity etc (doesn’t already exist in the body)