L3 Drug Discovery/Design DT

Question 1

Drugs are important for 3 key things. State them

Answer 1

1) Health of the Nation
2) Economy
3) International Prestige

Question 2

How can drugs improve the health of the nation?

Answer 2

• It can decrease morbidity
• It can improve quality of life
• Reduced Hospitalisation
• Reduced Mortality
• Help Patients avoid surgery

Question 3

How can drugs be good for the economy?

Answer 3

• If people are living longer there is more tax contribution and general expenditure
• Better healthcare creates an attractive investment opportunity

Question 4

What approach do most therapies fit? what does it mean for the patient

Answer 4

“One Size Fits All”

• Patient does not receive optimal dosing for the disease
• This may lead to life threatening ADRs
• Drug may not work -> causing patient distress and waste of money.

Question 5

What is a solution to the one size fits all approach?

Answer 5

Personalised medicine and pharmacogenomics

Question 6

What are orphan drugs? give examples, and how the government encourages their production

Answer 6

commercially underdeveloped drugs, typically used in targeting rare diseases. examples are:

• Multiple Sclerosis
• Psoriasis

The government offers longer patents and tax breaks

Question 7

State 5 compelling reasons for high cost of drugs

Answer 7

• Skilled workforce
• Licencing (by FDA, EMA, MHRA)
• Animal use
• Expensive equipment
• Extensive testing

Question 8

What big issue in pharma is solved with personalised medicine?

Answer 8

the problem of moving the drug from relatively small clinical trial populations to the large general public

Question 9

In future, pharmaceutical companies will be able to develop predictive tests to accompany their new drug products. give an exmaple

Answer 9

Trastuzumab (Herceptin) for treatment of breast cancer. This drug comes with a HER2 status checker. If HER2 receptor is overexpressed, it can cause cancer cells to reproduce uncontrollably.

Question 10

Why is effective patent life reducing?

Answer 10

• Increased sophistication of research
• Increased requirement for more sophistication in evaluation
• Increased restrictions in regulation
• Increased number of generic companies creating ‘me too’ drugs which are structurally similar with minor differences.

= all leading to longer development time

Question 11

what is the result/response of shorter patents?

Answer 11

• short patents leads to rapid promotions to saturate markets ASAP
• pressure on GP’s from drug companies
• Doctors are offered incentives