This week, I read an article about drug to treat lupus. I was interested in this article because I study pharmacy.
The article is as follows:
A federal advisory committee on Tuesday endorsed what could become the first drug approved in decades to treat lupus.
The advisory committee to the food and drug Administration recommended by a 13-2 vote that the drug, Benlysta, developed by human genome science, should be approved.
In reaching its decision, the committee weighed what some members characterized as only marginal efficacy of the drug with the desperate needs of patients with the disease.
About 30 patients, relatives of patients or patient advocates, some breaking into tears, described to the committee how lupus had devastated their lives or the lives or their loved one and implored the committee to recommend approval of the drug.
The F.D.A. is scheduled to decide on approval by Dec. 9. It usually, though not always, follows the recommendations of its advisory committees.
Benlysta, would be the first approved drug for Human Genome Sciences, a biotechnology company in Rockville , Md.
Analysts expect Benlysta, which will be marketed with help from GlaxoSmithKline, to achieve more than $1 billion in sales.
Before I entered into pharmaceutical faculty of Hokkaido University
Today, it takes ten years to develop drug at least. First, researchers do screening, a computational technique used in drug discovery research. It takes about two years. Then, researchers survey the effect and safety of the ingredient using animals instead of human being. It takes some three years. Next, the new drug is used for human being.
Checking the new drug is safe, they wait the approval of Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
The patients, especially who are suffering from the sick that have not definite treatment, will think that it takes so long time to discover the new drug. I thought so, too before studying drug. However, it takes much time for safety. Also, a lot of medicine had discovered, so it is very difficult to discover new drug.
To discover new drug, we should make children interested in science and make many people study drug. In addition to that, we research the new field, genome because genome has not researched so much, so there are new substances.
Andrew Pollack. ”F.D.A Panel Endorses a Drug to Treat Lupus”
New York Times 16 Nov.2010 :n pag 17 Nov.2010
I enjoyed reading your blog. Are you planning to do pharmacological research when you graduate or are you going to become a pharmacist. Which ever path you choose, it seems interesting to me. It also seems difficult.
返信削除Thank you for your comment, Jaques!
返信削除I don't decide which course to choose, becauseI am interested in both field.:)