Oncology

Oncology Research @ Amgen

Today's seminar was about oncology research at Amgen presented by Terri burgess. Amgen is on of the biggest and successful pharmacology company in the United States. It focuses on multiple therapeutic modalities like areas of oncology. Amgen investigates proteins specifically natural proteins, peptides, and antibodies. They also work on small molecules.

Most of Amgen's research is target driven. There are many steps they take to finalize a drug and distributing to the market. They first have to identify the target, target validation, drug discovery, preclinical evaluations, clinical trials, and than release to the market. There are many rules and guidelines pharmacology companies must abide by to move there drug along successfully.

Many drugs Amgen are currently doing research on are kinase inhibitors in cancer. Genentech has distributed a drug called herpeptin, which fights breast cancer. Herceptin is involved with the kinase Her-2. Kinase activation is caused by phosphorylation. This induces a change in formation and allows substrate binding to occur and begin a signaling cascade of events. New drugs are trying to inhibit this cascade.

Human clinical trials for new drugs come in 4 different phases. Phase1 is when the drug is administered with a low dosage to a few subjects and focuses on safety. Phase 2 looks at some efficacy of the drug. Phase 3 looks at efficacy in large numbers of people. Finally Phase 4 is given to greater than 1000 patients and looks for rare events and interactions with the drug.