OncoBrands We Used to Know in 2011

Oncology is one island where biotech investment continues in the sea of shrinking biopharma.  As expected, the current environment is also conducive to oncology biotech companies being lost to mergers and acquisitions.  Sadly, these carefully crafted and nurtured brands will be lost for ever!

Webinar Report: Impact of Next Generation/Whole-Genome Sequencing on Companion Diagnostics

Biomarkers are increasingly part of pharmaceutical and clinical strategy.  By some estimates, the success rate of FDA approval of new cancer drugs is 75% if mechanism-of-action and predictive or prognostic biomarkers are clearly defined, whereas it is 25% without the biomarker information.  However, identifying new biomarkers for companion diagnosis (CDx) remains a challenge—the identification of KRAS-type biomarkers is rare, there is a double regulatory hurdle and revenue issues hamper pharmaceutical investment in this area.  Whole-genome sequencing is an important tool in the discovery of biomarkers. 

Friday Grand Rounds: Harold Varmus Discusses Cancer Cell Biology and Clinical Translation

Thirty-five years ago Harold E. Varmus [wikipedia], along with J. Michael Bishop, discovered the role of oncogenes in cancer.  That seminal discovery in 1975 gave cancer researchers a path, "the road to be taken," that has today led to great advancements in clinical oncology; it has changed the face of a growing number of cancer types to potentially curable or manageable forms.  Not long ago, both scientists were honored with the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1989 [read, [here, here]

Emerging Target, “Cell Metabolism”: From Boondocks to Harvard Square, Boston

The emergence of “cancer energy metabolism” as one of the promising targets, is affirmed by the two significant Pharma deals this year:

Verastem brings CSC target into “sharper” focus

The launch of Verastem, Inc., in Boston last week with the securing of $16 million Series A financing , signals the coming of age of cancer stem cells (CSCs) as a target for solid cancers. 

Mining aminoacyl tRNA synthases (aaRSs) for anti-angiogenic factors

Aminoacyl tRNA synthases (aaRSs) are ancient catalytic enzymes that catalyze the first step in protein synthesis, transfer of amino acid to its cognate tRNA, something that we learned years ago in Stryer’s Biochemistry.  But, these enzymes are also moonlighting proteins, with alternate splice forms or natural proteolytic fragments, acting as cytokines, angiogenic factors or angiostatic factors. The one that caught my eye was tryptophanyl-tRNA synthase (TrpRS) fragment which is antiangiogenic and is in clinical development for retinal diseases [...][...].