PCL102H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Hmg-Coa Reductase, Drug Discovery, Pcsk9
1 Feb 2018
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Pharmaceutical companies / government / capitalism / patent system. But also: the science of drug discovery is hard. Drugs are not expensive because we are evil, they are expensive because we are stupid . Drug discovery is hard because: biology is complex, we are dealing with a classic multiple variable optimization problem, except: the variables to be optimized pertain to a poorly understood, complex and unpredictable system. Cancer and alzheimers etc still dont have solutions. We are dealing with a biological system that escapes our rational understanding and we are trying to make a molecule that perturbs this system while working under constraints. 95% of candidates entering clinical trials fail due to lack of efficacy and unpredictable side effects. But there has been a resurgence of large molecules like antibodies recently. Drugs work by binding to proteins and modifying their function. Proteins are very important in this process. Breakdown in balance of proteins = disease.
