The Future of Drug Discovery

Tamas Bartfai was a student of mathematics, physics, and chemistry before translating his skills into biochemistry, pharmacology and neuroscience. Trained in Stockholm University, Yale University, and The Rockefeller University, he is presently a professor at The Scripps Research Institute, the University Oxford, and the University of Pennsylvania, and an expert in medicinal chemistry and the neurological sciences. He has been working in the development of new medicines and vaccines for many years as a former Sr.VP of Hoffmann La Roche, and long-term consultant at Astra, Novartis and, presently, Pfizer. Eight of the drugs Dr. Bartfai developed are in clinical use and three are in trials. He has trained and collaborated with many scientists throughout his scientific work on the topics of fever, neuropeptides, and prostaglandins, while publishing over 400 articles in over 80 journals. Dr. Bartfai has held many prestigious academic positions. He is a member of Academia Europae and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, a fellow of AAAS for pioneering work on neuropeptides, and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics. He was professor of the Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology. He has been awarded a number of prestigious prizes including Eötvös Medal for mathematics in 1966, Budapest, Hungary; Royal Swedish Academy’s Svedberg Prize for biochemistry in 1985 and Ericsson Prize in 1996; and the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award 2002. Graham V Lees acquired his BA, MA and PhD degrees at the University of Cambridge. His postdoctoral work on the biophysics of ion channels was followed by a lengthy career in scientific, technical and medical publishing with Elsevier (Amsterdam), Raven Press (New York), Academic Press (San Diego & London) and TheScientificWorld (San Diego, Boynton Beach, Newbury & Helsinki). His scientific writing has been actively increasing, including contributions to the textbook Fundamental Neuroscience; co-editing with Edward G. Jones and Lorne Mendell, and contributing to Neuroscience to Neurological Recovery for the Society for Neuroscience (SfN); and co-authoring The Future of Drug Discovery: Who Decides Which Diseases to Treat and Drug Discovery: From Bedside to Wall Street with Tamas Bartfai. He is interested in politics and social aspects of drug discovery. He has a profound ability to translate complex processes and ideas into more simple English that can be widely read. The authors’ previous book Drug Discovery: from Bedside to Wall Street, Elsevier/Academic Press, 2006, has been published in Japanese (Chem-Bio Informatics Society) and Mandarin (Science Press). Their later book’s Japanese and Mandarin editions are in preparation.

00 – Introduction for the non-specialist

01 – Why there will be new drugs despite the ongoing ‘crisis’ of drug development in big pharma

02 – The need for medicine grows

03 – Medicines are becoming better

04 – Which diseases do we want to treat?

05 – Therapeutic Areas: strategically important diseases for the future

06 – Blockbuster proprietary drugs versus generic drugs

07 – Why is pharma a special industry?

08 – Diagnosing towards personalized medicine

09 – Personalized medicine

10 – How much can drugs cost?

11 – Modeling Drug Discovery until 2025

12 – Drug development models between 2010 and 2025