Skip to main content

Drug Discovery

From Bedside to Wall Street

  • 1st Edition - December 15, 2005
  • Latest edition
  • Authors: Tamas Bartfai, Graham V. Lees
  • Language: English

Everyone expects something from the drug industry. Physicians and patients, investors, regulators and administrators all have an active interest. Everyone wants to know what ma… Read more

World Book Day celebration

Where learning shapes lives

Up to 25% off trusted resources that support research, study, and discovery.

Description

Everyone expects something from the drug industry. Physicians and patients, investors, regulators and administrators all have an active interest. Everyone wants to know what makes drugs ‘work’ medically and economically. Why are drugs so expensive? Is it the drug companies or investors who demand high profits? What governs the pharmacoeconomics? Why are so few diseases treatable?

Drug Discovery opens the windows and doors of the industry telling the story of drug development by using real stories from inside the process.

Key features

  • Co-written by Graham Lees and Tamas Bartfai who has been involved in the development of drugs taken by more that 20 million people every day
  • Opens the windows and doors of the most regulated industry in the world, the pharmaceutical industry
  • Tells the story of drug development by using real examples based on current research and events
  • Provides an objective, lucid account of the successes and failures, shortcomings and constraints of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries
  • Gives insights into the development of new drugs to combat multiple conditions including cancer and pain
  • Balanced, unbiased account of how better to translate basic science into drug discovery

Readership

Academics/Scientists interested in working with biotech and pharma companies

Table of contents

Proposed Contents:

1. The Art of Putting a Molecule Into Man

2. Raising & Rising Expectations

3. History is good to know

4. The "Better Betablocker Barrier"

5. Why Some Good Drugs Do Not Get a Chance & Why

6. About the Economics of Target and Clinical Candidate Selection

7. Target Based Drug Discovery: Part I

8. Changes Need to be Made

9. Target Based Drug Discovery, Part II

10. "Drugable" Targets

11. So Many Drugs, So Few Entities

12. How to Find a Candidate

13. Practicalities: The Hoops & Hurdles of Big Pharma

14. Practical Trials for a Balanced Portfolio

15. How to Improve the Odds of Finding a Safe Drug that Works

16. The Tribulations of Clinical Trials

17. Linking Putative Targets to Disease States

18. More Ways to Look for Targets

19. The Business Basics

20. Adding Value in a Growth of Industry

21. What's the Most Profitable Approach?

22. Pharmacoeconomics for Biotech

23. Shrinking Value of Targets

24. Assessing Company Assets? Look in the Library

25. To Merge or Not to Merge?

26. Working with the Food & Drug Administration (FDA)

27. Regulating Regulatory Regimens Reliably

28. The Hypothesis Is: There is a Better Way

29. What are "We" all Working on?

30. More Tablets Taken per Day than Meals Served

Review quotes

"Doody's 3 Star Review: It was refreshing reading about these matters from a different perspective. The critical nature of the book, I would imagine, was intentional to play the proverbial "devil's advocate". This book truly caused me to rethink some attitudes and opinions I have had about pharmaceutical company behavior in the marketplace. It's nice that once in a while such a refreshing publication comes along."—Albert Wertheimer, B.S., MBA, PhD, Temple University School of Pharmacy for DOODY'S

"[This book] is very readable and insightful. I am hopeful that many people will pick it up, and develop a better appreciation for what goes into making the treatments that everyone wants!"—Dennis W. Choi, M.D., Sr. VP Merck (2006)

"Anyone who thinks solutions to drug development are just around the corner would be well-advised to get this insider's views as to where the real problems lie."—Floyd Bloom, CEO Neurome, former Editor of Science magazine (2006)

"...a very informative and exciting book filling an important niche. Very easy to read, it encouraged me to think about several things."—Richard Nass, Vanderbilt University (2006)

Product details

  • Edition: 1
  • Latest edition
  • Published: December 15, 2005
  • Language: English

About the authors

TB

Tamas Bartfai

Tamas Bartfai was a student of mathematics, physics, and chemistry before translating his skills into biochemistry, pharmacology and neuroscience. Trained in Stockholm University, Yale University, and The Rockefeller University, he is presently a professor at The Scripps Research Institute, the University Oxford, and the University of Pennsylvania, and an expert in medicinal chemistry and the neurological sciences. He has been working in the development of new medicines and vaccines for many years as a former Sr.VP of Hoffmann La Roche, and long-term consultant at Astra, Novartis and, presently, Pfizer. Eight of the drugs Dr. Bartfai developed are in clinical use and three are in trials. He has trained and collaborated with many scientists throughout his scientific work on the topics of fever, neuropeptides, and prostaglandins, while publishing over 400 articles in over 80 journals.

Dr. Bartfai has held many prestigious academic positions. He is a member of Academia Europae and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, a fellow of AAAS for pioneering work on neuropeptides, and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics. He was professor of the Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology. He has been awarded a number of prestigious prizes including Eötvös Medal for mathematics in 1966, Budapest, Hungary; Royal Swedish Academy’s Svedberg Prize for biochemistry in 1985 and Ericsson Prize in 1996; and the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award 2002.

Affiliations and expertise
PhD, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA Harold L. Dorris Neurological Research Center and Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA

GL

Graham V. Lees

Graham V Lees acquired his BA, MA and PhD degrees at the University of Cambridge. His postdoctoral work on the biophysics of ion channels was followed by a lengthy career in scientific, technical and medical publishing with Elsevier (Amsterdam), Raven Press (New York), Academic Press (San Diego & London) and TheScientificWorld (San Diego, Boynton Beach, Newbury & Helsinki). His scientific writing has been actively increasing, including contributions to the textbook Fundamental Neuroscience; co-editing with Edward G. Jones and Lorne Mendell, and contributing to Neuroscience to Neurological Recovery for the Society for Neuroscience (SfN); and co-authoring The Future of Drug Discovery: Who Decides Which Diseases to Treat and Drug Discovery: From Bedside to Wall Street with Tamas Bartfai. He is interested in politics and social aspects of drug discovery. He has a profound ability to translate complex processes and ideas into more simple English that can be widely read.

The authors’ previous book Drug Discovery: from Bedside to Wall Street, Elsevier/Academic Press, 2006, has been published in Japanese (Chem-Bio Informatics Society) and Mandarin (Science Press). Their later book’s Japanese and Mandarin editions are in preparation.

Affiliations and expertise
PhD, Publishing Consultant, Corpus Alienum Oy, Finland