Practical Lessons and Insights from Seasoned Drug Hunters
Other articles you may be interested in
What is a Biologic Drug Anyway?
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Own Definition. Recently I posted on “biologic drugs” which were approved in 2019 . All was well in my little scientific universe, until I received this in an email: “You recently reported "14 novel biologic drugs," referring to 'novel' biopharmaceuticals approved CDER. But, … You also include [...]
AI for All? How Pharma Partnerships Improve Software Solutions
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing data processing, with applications to drug discovery ranging from automating cellular imaging to modeling protein folding . Although numerous startups are developing methods to apply AI-driven drug discovery to develop proprietary assets, a remaining challenge is making these powerful tools [...]
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.
It Takes a Village
New drugs are discovered by teams, not individuals. "Drug discovery is a complex undertaking, and I enjoy the collaboration with many people from different disciplines and expertise areas that it takes to solve this impossible puzzle," says reviewer Joachim Rudolph . Drug Hunter also takes a community to build, and we [...]
What Drug Hunters Wish They’d Known When Starting Out
In a Drug Hunter Flash Talk, Dennis Koester, Director of Medicinal Chemistry at FibroGen, shared an adage credited to the Greek philosopher Epictetus that he wishes his younger self had learned: "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak." During this ongoing video series, other scientists, including Chris Burns, Christian Gampe, Katrina (Kate) Jackson, Dafydd Owen, Prof. Richard (Rick) Silverman, and Prof. Andrew Wilks, also talked about what they wished they had learned earlier in their careers.
