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Advancing Drug Discovery Through Structure-Guided Drug Design
Decision Resources, Inc., April 2005, Pages: 16
Knowledge of protein structure is extremely valuable in drug discovery and development and extremely difficult to obtain. To date, researchers have determined 3D protein structures for only a small percentage of known genomic sequences, largely because they are handicapped by technically challenging, often cumbersome technologies. In general, the available tools do not satisfy the demand for rapid delivery of accurate information about pharmaceutically relevant molecules. Consequently, scientists are seeking new ways to exploit the structural information they have and using technologies in innovative ways.
In this report, we review progress in protein-structure determination, and we profile emerging companies that are exploiting structure data in novel ways for drug discovery and development. We also discuss major hurdles to be overcome and the outlook for the application of protein-structure determination to drug discovery and design.
Business Implications
- The number of putative protein drug targets available has increased rapidly, but the challenges of elucidating protein structure remain. The number of putative targets still vastly exceeds the number of known structures. Because structure information is very valuable for guiding drug design, researchers are aggressively seeking faster ways to obtain it.
- Computational techniques and software for predicting structure have greatly improved over the last few years. However, these tools are often inaccurate and require great expertise. As a result, they are mostly used as adjuncts to drug discovery and have not prompted a revolution in drug design.
- The bottleneck in the structure-determination field has prompted pharmaceutical researchers to look for shortcuts and new technological approaches. Companies such as Structural GenomiX and Takeda San Diego (formerly Syrrx) have made substantial progress in accelerating structure determination and are now shifting to drug discovery.
- Fragment-based design is an important new approach. By using small fragments as starting points, pioneers in this field, including Plexxikon and Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, hope to speed and improve lead selection and optimization. The field is advancing quickly and has already generated development compounds.
- Structure-guided drug design (SGDD) apparently has not yet conferred any significant advantage in drug discovery, except in fields for which substantial structural data are available (e.g., HIV, influenza). It will take five to ten years for SGDD methods to become widely applicable across a range of targets.
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