Kodak's small-molecule OLEDs, which make better use of current manufacturing technology, proved quicker to develop.
Protein drugs like Enbrel are much more expensive to make than traditional small-molecule drugs, and Thousand Oaks, Calif.
That's why small-molecule generics are so much cheaper in America than they are in Canada and western Europe.
And they might be more lucrative than generic versions of small-molecule drugs, if the complexity of developing these larger molecules limits competition.
It is in the process of completing the acquisition of Allos Therapeutics (ALTH), whose drug, Folotyn, is a small-molecule therapeutic for cancer.
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Similar expirations have spawned a large generic industry around so-called small-molecule drugs and the same can occur for genetically engineered products that are proprietary and highly profitable today, Konski said.
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Because most small-molecule drugs can be manufactured with easily replicable chemical processes that lead to a largely reproducible drug formulation, the clinical trial data that supported approval of the original version can be relied upon for the generic versions.
Among their projects: developing a hybrid anticancer compound that combines an antibody with a cancer-targeting small molecule and using algae to quickly grow human antibodies that zero in on herpes.
On the FDA's Fast Track and in phase III testing is the company's BAY 43-9006, a small molecule RAF kinase and VEGF inhibitor that inhibits tumor growth for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (advanced kidney cancer).
The big bottleneck in going from gene to drug is having the chemical know-how to create a small molecule drug, the kind of chemical that can be produced very cheaply and sold for a lot of money.
If Turin wanted to work on this using his algorithm, he'd start with one of patchouli's components--say, a molecule that smells earthy or woody--and try varying its structure in small ways.
It seems to be particularly important for the growth and survival of some cancer cells and large amounts of the molecule are often present in the cells of non-small cell lung cancers, sometimes in a mutated, over-active form.
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