Plenge Lab

I believe that humans represent the ideal model organism for the development of innovative therapies to improve human health.  Experiments of nature (e.g., human genetics) and longitudinal observations in patients with disease can differentiate between cause and consequence, and therefore can overcome fundamental challenges of drug development (e.g., target identification, biomarkers of drug efficacy).  Using my Twitter account (@rplenge), this blog (www.plengegen.com/blog), and other forms of social media, I provide compelling examples that illustrate key concepts of “humans as the ideal model organism” (#himo) for drug development.

Why do drugs fail (#whydrugsfail)? This simple question is at the center of problems facing the pharmaceutical industry.  In short, drugs fail in early development because of unresolved safety signals or lack of biomarkers for target engagement, and drugs fail in late development because of lack of efficacy or excess toxicity.  This leads to a costly system for bringing new drugs to market – not because of the successes, but because >95% of drug programs ultimately fail.  Without improvements in rates of success in drug development, the sustainability of the pharmaceutical industry as we know it is in trouble (see here). Not surprisingly, much has been written about this topic, including analyses of development strategies (Forbes blog, Drug Baron), company pipelines (Nature Reviews Drug Discovery manuscript from AstraZeneca) and FDA approvals (here and here).…

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