From AZ to VC: Tracing Our Industry’s Recent Evolution Through A Career

This deep dive into 2021’s novel large molecule drug approvals is the 2 nd in a series of focus articles on 2021’s novel large molecule drugs. See part one here . For each of the 16 large molecule drug approvals of 2021 (excluding vaccines), we’ll [...]

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.

KIN-3248 (Kinnate Biopharma) is a next-generation, irreversible, pan-fibroblast growth factor receptor inhibitor (FGFRi) in a first-in-human (FIH) dose-escalation study (NCT05242822) in adults with advanced tumors harboring FGFR2 and FGFR3 gene alterations. The program is an excellent case study for rational covalent drug design to address kinase mutations while maintaining sufficient PK properties for oral daily dosing in humans.

There were four novel drugs approved by the FDA in January 2022 (2 small molecules, 2 large molecules). The novel January 2022 new drug approvals appear below in this Drug Hunter minireview: See our overview of all 36 of the novel small molecule and large molecule FDA [...]

Peptidic GLP-1R agonists have received significant media coverage over the past year for their astounding efficacy in several indications. GLP-1R agonists now appear to be efficacious in reducing heart disease risk and in treating certain chronic kidney diseases, expanding their likely future use. This review by Oliver Philps provides an overview of GLP-1 agonists and where they fit in the treatment of diabetes, how the peptide drugs evolved over time to today’s weight loss medications, and what to expect next...