Industry-Academic Consortium Set Up to Bolster Schizophrenia and Depression R&D

An article posted today by Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News:

A newly established international industry-academic consortium is to receive funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) to develop new models and methods for the discovery of treatments for schizophrenia and depression. Led by H. Lundbeck and Kings College London, the NEWMEDS (novel methods leading to new medications in depression and schizophrenia) project plans on partnering with major academic institutions in Europe and Israel as well as global pharma companies like AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Novartis, Orion, Pfizer, Roche, Servier, and Wyeth.

The research will focus on developing new animal models for the identification of treatments for schizophrenia. It will also examine how genetic variations influence drug response. Additionally, the project aims to develop new approaches that will allow shorter and more efficient clinical trials.

The consortium believes there are currently a number of major bottlenecks preventing the translation of knowledge and research findings relating to schizophrenia and depression to the clinic. These include a lack of accurate animal models for drug discovery, a scarcity of tools and tests in healthy volunteers to provide early efficacy data, and the reliance in clinical trials on symptom-based diagnostic and statistical manual categories.

“While the biology of psychiatry has made remarkable progress, we have been slow in converting that into innovative and new medications,” points out Shitij Kapur, M.D. (pictured), at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry. “This is a joint challenge for academia and industry. NEWMEDS is a joint response. It is not only scientifically innovative, but it is also an innovation in creating a cluster of nearly 50 scientists from both sides to work together to achieve a common goal of better, safer, and more effective medicines more quickly.”

Tine Bryan Stensbl, M.D., divisional director for discovery pharmacology research at Lundbeck, adds, “NEWMEDS embodies a novel collaborative effort where companies join forces and together with academia answer scientific questions in a precompetitive environment that will form the basis of tomorrow’s medicines. This joint effort will provide novel insights that undoubtedly will be to the benefit of the patients suffering from schizophrenia and depression.”

The IMI, which will provide funding to NEWMEDS, is public-private partnership between the pharma industry’s European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations and the EU. The initiative’s goal is to promote and support Europe’s position in drug discovery and development. The IMI’s overall funding scheme has a budget of €2 billion, half of which will be provided by the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme and half by EFPIA member companies.

I thank John Devlin for bringing this article to my attention.

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Rethinking Schizophrenia

From the September 15th edition of Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN):

Advances could spur treatments for more symptoms than current drugs address

By Carmen Drahl

WHEN ACCOUNTS of schizophrenia began to emerge in the 1800s, institutionalization was the most common treatment for patients suffering from the disease. Despite significant advances in therapy, many of today's patients still find fitting into society a big challenge. Although iconoclastic 1960s psychiatrist Ronald D. Laing once wrote "Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair," the prevailing sentiment at last month's American Chemical Society national meeting in Philadelphia was one of hope. Researchers have learned more about the pathways that underpin schizophrenia, and those advances have led to drugs in clinical trials that reflect new approaches to treating the disease.

Session organizer John E. Macor, executive director of neuroscience discovery chemistry at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), in Wallingford, Conn., told C&EN that existing medications for schizophrenia, known as antipsychotics, do not remedy all of the disease's symptoms. Speakers at the Division of Medicinal Chemistry-sponsored symposium advocated moving beyond established drugs, which are all aimed at dopamine neurotransmission. They argued that focusing on new targets, such as the glutamate neurotransmitter system, a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, or a signaling pathway mediated by cyclic nucleotides, might tackle a wider range of symptoms.

In her stage-setting overview for the session, Judith A. Siuciak, principal scientist for neuroscience biology at BMS, characterized schizophrenia by what she described as positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms. Commonly prescribed drugs ease positive symptoms, which include hallucinations and disorganized speech. However, she said, the drugs are less effective at eliminating negative symptoms, such as lack of motivation and inability to experience pleasure, and cognitive symptoms, which include impairments to memory and decision-making.

"The medications that we have are only partially effective," concurs Robert K. Heinssen, deputy director of the National Institute of Mental Health's (NIMH's) Division of Services & Intervention Research, who did not attend the symposium but spoke with C&EN beforehand. What's more, he adds, not all patients respond equally well to the drugs. Even with medication, schizophrenia sufferers can be withdrawn and have trouble processing information, so "these patients are overwhelmed by the competing demands of our environment," he says.

Bold emphasis within the article is mine. To read the entire article, click here.

Selective Drug Pfizer's drug candidate for schizophrenia (stick model) blocks a specific phosphodiesterase enzyme. Protein surfaces contacting the drug are shown in a space-filling format. Amino acids and a water molecule that make contact with the drug are shown in ball-and-stick form.

Image courtesy of Eric Marr, Jayvardhan Pandit & Xinjun Hou/Pfizer.

New drug candidates for the treatment of schizophrenia.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

Image courtesy of Chemical and Engineering News.