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Clore Laboratory: News
Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolic Research
10 March 2005 – Mike Cawthorne gives invited lecture at ACS ProSpectives conference on drug discovery
Mike Cawthorne, Director of Metabolic Research, Clore Laboratory, University of Buckingham, UK, has presented the case for incorporation of traditional methodologies into current drug discovery strategies in order to reverse the decline in output of new chemical entities. Mike’s invited presentation, entitled ‘Drug discovery for type 2 diabetes and obesity in the pre-genomic era using mouse models’, was given at the American Chemical Society (ACS) ProSpectives conference on ‘Interplay of chemistry and biology in integrative drug discovery’ held at Coral Gables, Miami, Florida, USA, 5-9 March 2005.
During the last 10 years, drug discovery has largely focused on molecular targets arising from the opportunities presented by the deciphering of the human genome. Despite the use of a plethora of technologies designed to speed up drug discovery and a vast amount of information, the output of new drugs from the industry has declined.
Mike Cawthorne’s presentation introduced the concept of introducing drug-like molecules at the front end of the discovery process. Mike gave a number of examples, including the discovery of the insulin sensitiser drug Avandia, where a low potency drug-like lead from the literature had resulted in the rapid development of a potent drug. Such a process is complementary to the current molecular target driven process, but might restore drug discovery productivity.