TECHNOLOGY FORESIGHT SUMMIT - Unido

Part two. Biotechnology Forum 65
In silico ADME-Tox tools and electronic databases to profile and prioritize
compounds earlier in the drug discovery process
The use of structural similarities and differences of protein target and
anti-targets to design highly specific drugs and examples of virtual
screening to identify small drug-like molecules able to mimic or modulate
the biological activity of complex biomolecules
Pharmacogenomics to study how genetic variation influences individual
responses to a drug
In silico R&D methods to support drug development for Rheumatoid
Arthritis (RA). A mathematical model is developed to stimulate the
clinical symptoms and drug response of a virtual RA patient.
The starting point of the last speaker, Prof. Laszlo Takacs (Pfizer, France):
“Parallel Biology: Current Aspects of Genome Research and its Application in
the Pharmaceutical Industry” was the comparison of hypothesis-driven research
with the hypothesis-free, encyclopaedic, data-collecting work which is the
ruling trend in pharmaceutical research today. He emphasized the importance
of the integration of the two approaches in what he called “parallel
biology”. This integration means that the functional analysis of single genes
must go hand-in-hand with data-mining and comparison of huge data-sets,
using sophisticated computational tools. He gave a brief historic overview of
how these two approaches developed lately in both fundamental (academic)
and applied (pharmaceutical) research. He offered a rather pessimistic view
on various problems faced by the pharmaceutical industry (diminishing value
of patents, hostile environment, diminishing returns on increasing investments).
The perspectives of genomic research for drug discovery and development
were highly overestimated, they created false expectations for “magic
bullets” and “miracle cures” and so far none of these have been realized.
In the last part of his contribution he discussed the possibilities open for
the CEE countries in this field. Academic excellence is available in this region,
but capital investment for large-scale projects is missing. Therefore it is necessary
to find those “ecological niches” where brilliant ideas can result in
useful leads to be developed in cooperation with large companies.
The discussion was centred around the problems of patenting. Three
problematic aspects of patenting were mentioned: (a) the question of patenting
living organisms or genes; (b) the differences between the principles of
patenting in the US and in the EU; (c) the lack of motivation and skills, and
money required for successful patent applications by academic scientists,
especially in the CEE and NIS regions.