Briefly discuss the other drugs on the market in comparison to the drug of your choice

You have recently been appointed as the R&D Director of a successful multinational company that has recently decided to change it’s corporate focus and direct a

research program to develop a “me too” drug to compete with and established pharmaceutical product that acts at an innovator target (see table 1). Your task is to

choose a one of these targets and  prepare a research proposal for the next company Board Meeting that includes the following points:.

?    Part – I: A description of the drug discovery process that led to the development of the “competitor” drug which acts on the innovator or novel target. A

description of the pharmacology of this drug, its clinical indications and a comparison to any pre-existing pharmacotherapies (80 points).

?    Select a drug target from table 1
?    List drugs available in Australia for this target
?    Select the most popular drug from the list and discuss its chemistry, pharmacology, mechanism of action, indications, contraindications, side effects etc.
?    Briefly discuss the other drugs on the market in comparison to the drug of your choice

?    Part – II: A proposal to initiate a drug discovery program to identify a new class of chemical compound that will act on the innovator target. You may treat

the drug of your choice (as above) as a lead compound and suggest chemical and/or physical modification for your discovery program. This proposal should include a

discussion on the benefits of your chosen drug discovery in comparison to existing drugs (20 points).

The maximum word count for this assignment is 3000 words. Quality is more important to quantity. A correctly formatted bibliography is required and only primary

reference sources may be included.

To complete this assignment, further reading of the scientific literature concerning
drug discovery will be necessary. Useful references include;

Reference number 1 :
Clarke PA, te Poele R, Wooster R, Workman P. Gene expression microarray analysis
in cancer biology, pharmacology, and drug development: progress and potential.
Biochem Pharmacol. 2001, 62:1311-36.

Reference number 2 :
Gurwitz D and Weizman A. Animal models and human genome diversity: the pitfalls
of inbred mice. Drug Discov. Today, 2001, 6:766-768

Reference number 3:
Bajorath J, Rational drug discovery revisited: interfacing experimental programs with
bio- and chemo-informatics. Drug Discov. Today 2001, 6:989-995

Reference number 4:
Page MJ, Amess B, Rohlff C, Stubberfield C and Parekh R. Proteomics: a major new
technology for the drug discovery process. Drug Discov. Today, 1999 4:55-62

Reference number 5:
Strohl WR. The role of natural products in a modern drug discovery program. Drug
Discov. Today 2000, 5:39-41.

Reference number 6:
Tornell J, Snaith M. Transgenic systems in drug discovery: from target identification
to humanized mice. Drug Discov. Today. 2002, 7:461-70.

Reference number 7:
Wise A, Gearing K, Rees S. Target validation of G-protein coupled receptors. Drug
Discov. Today. 2002 7:235-46.