Pharma R&D Today

AI precision medicine accelerates the search for rare disease treatment

Posted on September 20th, 2021 by Ann-Marie Roche

AI and precision medicine are both changing drug discovery and development as we know it. Precision medicine that is powered by AI stands to be transformative, especially for the treatment of rare diseases. Elsevier was recently part of a collaboration that sought to demonstrate how AI precision medicine could lead researchers to new treatments for brain tumors faster.

At the leading edge of an innovation hotspot: predictive reaction modeling

Posted on September 8th, 2021 by Louise Springthorpe

Indisputably, a surge in predictive machine learning models to support synthetic chemistry has galvanized a movement to make these tools effective R&D solutions. Reaxys has been part of this innovation journey from the beginning. Today, Reaxys includes an award-winning Predictive Retrosynthesis solution that merges deep neural networks trained on Reaxys data with a Monte Carlo tree search to quickly discover promising candidate routes. Users explore these routes and new synthetic spaces via an intuitive interface that links to Reaxys content on commercial availability and accelerates design-make-test-analyze (DMTA) cycles.

Companies pledge to become net zero by 2040

Posted on August 31st, 2021 by Ann-Marie Roche

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just released a special report on the impacts of climate change, and the findings suggest a very concerning picture of the future if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate. The drastic changes in the weather, driving everything from wildfires to drought, are already giving us a preview of an increasingly turbulent future – and the knock-on effects can be seen in resulting crises like the large-scale loss of crops and homes.

Lessons learned from the Covid vaccine development process

Posted on August 23rd, 2021 by Ann-Marie Roche

As the world’s focus has turned to getting the COVID-19 vaccines out as widely and rapidly as possible, it’s easy to almost forget about the incredible global effort that developed them in record time. But it is important to take some time to reflect on the process that got us here, so that we can learn from it and celebrate the amazing researchers whose work is now saving so many lives.

Accelerating synthetic chemistry with a predictive retrosynthesis solution

Posted on August 12th, 2021 by Ann-Marie Roche

In most aspects of life, we think of “endless possibilities” as a good thing. But in science, the wealth of possibilities can be daunting. Pharmaceutical researchers typically start with a disease that they want to tackle, find a target, and then try to identify compounds which interact with that target. There may be around 200-300 drug candidates per project, and synthesis planning and execution usually takes four to eight weeks per drug candidate. This process requires many chemists and a huge, costly effort to proceed.

Representation matters: Diversity in leadership

Posted on August 9th, 2021 by Ann-Marie Roche

We have known for some time now that having more women in leadership positions benefits companies, including their bottom line. This 2015 McKinsey report found that “Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.” The same report also found that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to see those higher financial returns.

About this Blog

The Elsevier Pharma R&D blog provides insight and opinion on topics related to pharmaceutical research and development, namely: big data, target identification, new drug discovery, drug safety monitoring, risk mitigation and regulatory compliance. We serve the community of chemists, scientists, drug safety specialists, educators and students interested in pharmaceutical R&D.

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Elsevier,  its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Reed Elsevier.