Drug discovery and development

First antimicrobial drugs purchased via new ‘subscription’ payment model

The first antimicrobial drugs have been purchased via the UK’s new ‘subscription-type’ payment model.…

COVID-19 vaccines: send us your questions

With positive trial results for potential COVID-19 vaccines coming thick and fast, we plan to dig beneath the headlines and answer your questions.…

Just out of reach: why the UK must rethink its barriers to novel medicines

The early access to medicines scheme has been running for six years, but has it had the desired impact of ensuring the sickest patients are spared the wait for the most promising treatments, or is it failing to live up to expectations?…

The COVID-19 vaccines being backed by the UK and when we might get them

The UK government has ordered 340 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from several manufacturers, with the hope that at least one will prove successful in large clinical trials over the next few months. However, there are no guarantees and some of the strategies are not without their challenges.…

Beyond antibiotics: harnessing bacteria’s natural predators

With antibiotic resistance set to cost 10 million lives per year by 2050, there is a renaissance of interest in the potential of bacteriophages to be the next generation of bacteria killers.…

Why ‘epidrugs’ will be the next major focus for precision medicine

It is not just our genes that dictate how our bodies cope with disease and respond to drugs — by identifying the modifications to our DNA strands, and the histone proteins that regulate gene expression, we can uncover a whole new direction for diagnostic biomarkers, therapeutic biomarkers and …

Roger M. Perlmutter: ‘The free flow of scientific talent in and out of the UK is incredibly important’

Roger M. Perlmutter is the executive vice president of Merck Sharp & Dohme, and president of MSD Research Laboratories. On a visit to London, he caught up with Gino Martini, chief scientist at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, for a chat about the future of pharmaceutical research and …

Drugs in space: the pharmacy orbiting the Earth

Researchers are busy developing pharmaceutical solutions for astronauts, but that extraterrestrial research could also have implications for how medicines are delivered on Earth.…

Heparin and zilucoplan added to COVID-19 ACCORD trials platform

The National Institute for Health Research has confirmed that two more drugs will be included in a clinical trial scheme designed to speed up development of new medicines for patients hospitalised with COVID-19.…

Why we need to talk about sex and clinical trials

The under-representation of women in clinical trials is slowly being addressed, but we cannot move towards truly personalised healthcare unless we have an equal balance of the sexes in all new medicine trials.…