2021 Oncology FDA Approvals: Small Molecules Deep Dive
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Leaving Academia to Discover a Billion-Dollar Drug: Reflections from a Thirty-Year Path to Momelotinib’s Approval
Momelotinib is a JAK inhibitor approved by the FDA in September 2023 for treating myelofibrosis. Last year, the molecule’s co-inventors, Andrew Wilks and Christopher Burns, gave a Drug Hunter Flash talk about the development of this drug with a fascinating mechanism of action.
In celebration of the molecule’s advancement, here we recap their brilliant story, including Wilks’ discovery of the JAK kinases and how he gave them their name, and the long, sometimes fraught journey of momelotinib through several companies before its acquisition and commercialization by GSK.
Another KRASG12C Inhibitor in Ph. III, Bayer’s Massive FXIa Ph. III Clinical Trial, and 21 Other Molecules in the News
In this update of small molecules in the news for February 2023, we will cover recent: - Molecules in Motion : clinical trial updates and FDA filings - Negative Readouts : halted, discontinued or altered clinical trials - Million-Dollar Molecules : recent M&A’s, IPOs, and other fundraising - Potential Approvals : recent NDA filings and [...]
A Bear Bile Acid Goes Bust: Taurursodiol + Phenylbutyrate
Relyvrio, developed by Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, is a combination treatment of sodium phenylbutyrate and taurursodiol, approved by the FDA in 2022 for ALS (“Lou Gehrig’s disease”). The approval was controversial, with an Advisory Committee initially voting against approval based on Ph. II data. Now, Ph. III data have confirmed the drug is no better than placebo in ALS, turning this phenotypic drug discovery story from two undergrads into a post-mortem highlighting the importance of clearly defined molecular mechanisms of action. This article reviews what happened and what we can learn.
PRMT5 Target Review: The Next "First-in-Class" Epigenetic Drug?
PRMT5 is an epigenetic “synthetic lethality” target that has attracted much attention among drug hunters. The first generation of PRMT5 inhibitors was limited by systemic toxicities resulting in a cooling of industry interest, until the recent identification of tumor-specific inhibitors. These second-generation compounds target the MTA:PRMT5 complex in MTAP-deleted cancers—15% of all tumors—leading to a revival of the target. Read on to find out which companies are prevailing in the search for a first-in-class PRMT5 inhibitor and how their clinical compounds differentiate.
Patent Highlights: Allosteric AR Modulators, Glycogen Synthase Inhibitors, and More
This article highlights million-dollar molecules that were recently in the news with related patent applications that give clues to their structures and properties. This edition includes Maze’s glycogen synthase 1 (GYS1) inhibitors that were recently licensed to Sanofi, allosteric androgen receptor (AR) modulators that may be of interest to targeted protein degradation researchers, brain-penetrant HER2 and ROCK2 inhibitors, and MDM2 degraders.
