Respiratory drug discovery, current developments and future challenges: Highlights from the Society of Medicines Research Symposium, held on June 14 th, 2012 - Horsham, UK

摘要

Chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), allergic rhinitis and cystic fibrosis remain a considerable healthcare burden with a significant unmet medical need. Acute lower respiratory tract infections are the leading cause of death among all infectious diseases. Asthma and COPD in particular are becoming more common, and thus the demand for continued advancements in respiratory drug discovery has grown significantly in recent years. It is estimated that the commercial respiratory pharmaceutical market will grow to over USD 24 billion by 2015. A previous SMR meeting in 2007 included the current thinking, at the time, in the area of airways drug delivery, and the challenges and developments in the classic drugs for respiratory diseases which form the mainstay of inhaled treatments, including β 2-adrenoceptor agonists, glucocorticoids and muscarinic receptor antagonists. This symposium brought together international experts from the pharmaceutical industry to review the latest therapeutic developments and to discuss the challenges in both the discovery and clinical development of novel therapeutics for lung diseases. Topics included the translational medicine development challenges for novel respiratory therapies, assessing the pharmacokinetics and local toxicity of inhaled therapies, strategies to enhance duration of action in the lung, and novel approaches to treat respiratory tract infections. This symposium also featured a selection of case histories for both small-molecule and biological approaches.