To mark its 10th anniversary, Drug Discovery & Development magazine invited pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to reflect on the history and made predictions about future of the industry. Featured here are verbatim comments from this company.
Southern Research Institute
Headquarters
Birmingham, Ala.
Location(s)
Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina
Years in Drug Research
50 years
Spokesperson
Dr. W. Blaine Knight, Vice President of Drug Discovery
Web site
About the company/organization
Southern Research Institute is a non-profit scientific research organization which conducts translational science (basic and applied) designed to invent small molecules and advance them from the drug design stage to the clinic. With capabilities in all phases of the early-stage drug discovery and development process with comprehensive services and support, including proteomics and biodefense/emerging pathogens research, Southern Research provides clients with high-impact expertise in streamlining their custom drug discovery and development programs. The drug discovery team is responsible for discovering six of the FDA approved anti-cancer drugs currently on the market, with six more drugs in late stage-preclinical/early clinical studies. Internal drug discovery programs focus in oncology, infectious and CNS diseases. Southern Research also has a significant business in engineering sciences.
A 10-year perspective: Advances and roadblocks
Ten years ago, the work at Southern Research was primarily focused on cancer, HIV and, to a lesser extent, other infectious diseases research, with some work being done in chemical agent defense. While the company still considers cancer one of its leading research focus areas, during the past 10 years, we have begun doing much more work in the area of infectious diseases, primarily in evaluating therapeutics and vaccines for emerging pathogens, but still maintain a core interest in “traditional pathogens”, HIV, HCV etc. In addition, Southern Research has added CNS diseases as a third therapeutic area. We no longer conduct chemical agent defense work. Our work has also evolved to include a mixture of government and commercial partners over the past 10 years.
R&D Challenges in the next 10 years
Data integration is the greatest challenge that Southern Research faces. We have the capability to collect terabytes of data from multiple –omic sources (proteomics, phospho-proteomics, genomics, metabolomics etc.) from laboratory and clinical samples. Increasingly the use of “biological fingerprints” or patterns of expression, posttranslational modifications, pathways etc. in the presence of modulators (small molecules and biotherapeutics) will drive drug discovery and development. In other words systems biology will place a high demand on the company’s ability to interpret and integrate data to create knowledge.
Business/regulatory challenges for the next 10 years
The solution of the human genome has been a primary driver over the last 10 years. This has driven technological developments the “-omic” proteomics, phospho-proteomics, genomics, metabolomics etc. In turn, these technologies are driving the need to integrate these results to complete predictors of efficacy and toxicity to develop treatments for human disease.
Bold Prediction: Where will the industry will be in 10 years?
Over the past 20 years we have taken a reductionist approach to drug discovery based upon the down to the molecular target. This has also been true our understanding of toxicology. This has been somewhat successful but not the “holy grail”. Over the next 10 years we will reconstruct biology by restoring the molecular targets in the context of the cellular networks where they operate including primary human cells and ultimately in the context of organs and humans. This will lead to more efficient development of safe efficacious drugs.
