Metabolic and Inflammatory Disease R&D: An Assessment of 5 Highly Promising Therapeutic Classes

CHI Insight Pharma Reports
April 1, 2007
170 Pages - SKU: CHI1646266
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At any given time, a number of drug targets are attracting considerable interest from different pharmaceutical companies. The emergence of such targets as hot topics of research usually becomes apparent before the introduction of clinical candidates by a rapid increase in the level of patenting and research activity directed toward them. Metabolic and Inflammatory Disease R&D: An Assessment of 5 Highly Promising Therapeutic Classes, by Peter Norman, MBA, PhD, a new report from Insight Pharma Reports, details targets of high interest that are primarily of relevance to inflammatory or metabolic diseases and toward which few, if any, compounds have progressed into Phase II studies.

Such extensive patenting and research focus is no guarantee of commercial success, as illustrated by the recent examples of lipoxygenase inhibitors and leukotriene antagonists—with the more intensive activity directed at the former providing negligible commercial returns while the latter led to 3 successful products. To help deal with such uncertainty, Metabolic and Inflammatory Disease R&D: An Assessment of 5 Highly Promising Therapeutic Classes identifies and assesses the potentially successful efforts in each of 5 different areas:
  • Chemokine antagonists
  • Toll-like receptors
  • Melanin-concentrating hormone antagonists
  • Melanocortin MC4 agonists
  • 11b-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase inhibitors
Selection of these 5 compound classes was based on an assessment of the levels of patenting and R&D activity directed against various targets currently of considerable interest in creating new agents for the treatment of inflammatory, autoimmune, or metabolic disorders. For instance:
  • In January 2007, 11 chemokine antagonists from 9 different companies were in clinical development for the treatment of inflammatory disorders, with 2 of these drugs being the focus of high-value commercial deals. Many more chemokine antagonists are either in preclinical development or lead optimization, and most of the major pharmaceutical companies have current R&D efforts directed at chemokine receptor targets.
  • For the 10 identified toll-like receptors (TLRs), current activity centers around development of both TLR agonists and antagonists to treat conditions ranging from sepsis to cancer. Metabolic and Inflammatory Disease R&D: An Assessment of 5 Highly Promising Therapeutic Classes provides a thorough analysis of these TLR potentials, plus succinct charts of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats for these and other products in development.