Pharma R&D Today

BCG – COVID-19 Hackathon Challenge Now Extended Through End of Year

Posted on October 23rd, 2020 by Ani Marrs

A renewed interest in whether the BCG vaccine (for tuberculosis) could also have an application for COVID-19 has been on the rise, as evidenced by this recent Cell publication, the University of Exeter’s involvement in the BRACE Trial and ongoing general press coverage. Furthermore, the list of clinical trials focusing on this area is continuing to grow (and is available here).

Model-based Strategy to Guide the Choice of Clinical Doses for ADC

Posted on October 14th, 2020 by Xuanyan Xu

Chemotherapy has been a powerful method for fighting cancer for decades. One of the most effective therapies available, it is also known for weakening the patient and causing harsh side effects like pain, nausea, and hair loss. This is because in its zeal to attack cancer cells, chemo also kills healthy cells.

How DNA-encoded Libraries Boost Drug Discovery

Posted on October 7th, 2020 by Xuanyan Xu

DNA-encoded libraries (DELs) have been gaining a lot of traction in hit finding and drug discovery in recent years. Regarded by some as a truly revolutionary advance in chemistry, a DEL is a mixture of millions of small molecules in which each molecule is conjugated to a DNA-oligomer that encodes its chemical structure. The mixture can be stored in a simple test tube.

Extracting Relevant Chemical Information from Patents with Machine Learning

Posted on October 5th, 2020 by Xuanyan Xu

New chemical compounds and reactions are often introduced to the world – and with little fanfare – through patents. It may be years after the patent has been filed before these compounds are published in scholarly journals, and even then it is only a small share of them that are published at all. As a result, it can be easy for these compounds to remain unknown to researchers who may be very interested in them.

Complimentary trend analysis report: Emerging trends in pancreatic cancer research

Posted on September 17th, 2020 by Matthew Morton

Pancreatic cancer sadly remains one of the most deadly cancers in existence, partly because it often goes undiagnosed until it has already metastasized. Finding new and better therapies to fight pancreatic cancer means accelerating the research. A new report just released from Elsevier’s Professional Services Group, titled Text mining to identify emerging trends in the pancreatic cancer literature, shows how that is possible.

BCG-COVID 19 Hackathon: Task 1 winners announced, Task 2 – data scientists – we need you!

Posted on September 10th, 2020 by Tim Miller

We’ve seen the scientific community come together time and again throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and we’re thrilled to have been part of a hackathon bringing together data scientists, epidemiologists and partner organizations focusing on analysing the hypothesis of whether the tuberculosis (TB) vaccine – BCG – could reduce COVID-19 mortality.

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.