Insilico Medicine has made a significant breakthrough with its AI-designed USP1 inhibitor, ISM3091. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted Insilico’s Investigational New Drug (IND) application for this promising drug, marking a significant milestone for AI-assisted drug discovery. “The FDA’s acceptance of our IND for ISM3091 signifies that the FDA recognizes its potential…
Visualizing the prominence of suspicious medical research publications
A recent exposé in Science magazine concluded that “Fake scientific papers are alarmingly common.” The article quoted a preprint from the German neuropsychologist Bernhard Sabel, which estimated that in 2020, up to one-third of neuroscience papers and nearly a quarter of medicine papers were likely falsified or plagiarized, highlighting a concerning prevalence of suspicious medical…
Data integrity scandals in biomedical research: Here’s a timeline
While scientific progress hinges on data integrity, plagiarism, data fabrication and image manipulation and other biomedical research scandals are ongoing concerns. An article in Science recently made waves by revealing startling conclusions from the research of the German neuropsychologist Bernhard Sabel, who developed a fake-paper detector. Publishing his findings in a preprint, Sabel concluded that there…
The growing influence of digital pathology in preclinical R&D: Spotlight on Proscia’s Concentriq
As drug discovery evolves, digital pathology platforms are playing a vital role in streamlining preclinical R&D processes and accelerating drug discovery. Proscia‘s Concentriq for Research reflects this trend. Earlier this year, we profiled PathAI’s AISight, a digital pathology platform designed to support AI-driven research. To learn more about Proscia’s digital pathology technology, we caught up with…
The pizza box problem — and why it might kill everything from Teflon to drugs
By Mark Jones It looks innocuous in my hand, yet there are growing calls to ban it. It may use technology created for the Manhattan Project, but, in my hand, it doesn’t feel like a weapon. It feels natural, in spite of the very unnatural materials it may contain. I’m not at all cautious as…
The future of rapid and enduring neuropsychiatric treatments: From psychedelics to non-hallucinatory psychoplastogens
Neuropsychiatric disorders, such as depression and anxiety, are among the leading causes of disability worldwide. Almost one billion people globally — roughly one out of eight individuals — live with a mental disorder, with anxiety and depressive disorders the most common, according to the World Health Organization. Yet current therapies such as selective serotonin reuptake…
Pharma M&A resurgence: An overview of recent deal-making trends
After something of a slow year in 2022, mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity is ramping back up in the pharma and biotech sector. There have been several especially large M&A deals in the past few months. Examples include Pfizer’s (NYSE:PFE) $43 billion acquisition of Seagen, and Merck’s (NYSE:MRK) $11 billion purchase of Prometheus Biosciences. In December…
Unraveling the impact of FDORA and PREVENT Pandemics Acts on the life sciences
As the world continues to grapple with global health challenges, the role of science and biotech law has taken center stage in shaping public health policy and innovation. The FDORA and PREVENT Pandemics Acts are poised to help shape the landscape. In a recent interview, life sciences attorney Barbara Binzak Blumenfeld offers insights into significant…