In celebration of 20 years of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents, we are delighted to introduce the October issue Guest Edited by Dr Herbert A. Kirst who has supported the journal on its Editorial Board since its early days. For this issue, Dr Kirst has selected a series of reviews discussing results from recent research devoted to finding new antibacterial agents that will improve treatment of infectious diseases, including those caused by strains resistant to current antibiotics.
In his Editorial, Dr Kirst comments that 20 years of calls for action have slowly been heeded since resistance problems first became widely recognized in the late 1980s and early 1990s prompted by the unexpected appearance of resistance to vancomycin.
The reviews in this issue reflect the current state of the competition between evolution of resistance to antimicrobial agents and the development of new agents to overcome such resistance by describing a variety of recent research efforts that have led to new antibacterial agents that are now proceeding through development and regulatory pathways.
We hope you will find the articles insightful and thought provoking.
Showing posts with label EOTP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EOTP. Show all posts
Monday, 27 September 2010
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Celebrating the 20 years of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents
This month celebrates the 20th anniversary of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents. Behind this slightly esoteric title, EOTP has for two decades offered a bird’s eye view of the latest advances in the discovery of therapeutically promising molecules. During this period the scientific and regulatory landscapes in drug R&D inevitably evolved, the number of peer-reviewed publications worldwide increased steadily and the Expert Opinion journals changed hands. Yet, I think it is fair to say that EOTP’s distinct approach and relevance have remained unaltered.
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ launch aimed at filling a gap in the life science literature by explicitly including patents within the scope of its review articles. Key to a legal system designed to promote innovation, patents provide exclusive rights to the inventor in return for the full disclosure of the invention to the public. In the specific context of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, this makes patents a particularly valuable source of information for medicinal chemists and other researchers involved in drug discovery. In effect, to protect their promising compounds, companies reveal them at an early preclinical stage and for the first time in patents. Not only do patents divulge the novel compounds, but they also show which are deemed to show clinical potential and offer insights into the competitors’ research programmes.
Patents are not alien to researchers in the industry. However, despite being largely freely available and easily searchable, patents present the information in a somewhat cryptic way. They don’t follow the rules of scientific writing and extracting the relevant knowledge can be time consuming. Patents are long documents worded in legal jargon by specialist attorneys. They often cover dozens of compounds, only a few of which are of genuine interest. These compounds need to be reconstructed from generic structures and of course, they need to be put into context with other related patents as well as the scientific literature.
EOTP’s review articles provide a dramatic shortcut to the essential information by summing up the important scientific content of dozens of patents, putting it into a wider perspective and, of course, expressing the authors’ own critical opinion. They answer fundamental questions such as “what are the structural types of inhibitors? “ and “who are the major players in the field?,” but also go beyond and suggest which compounds are likely to progress to the clinic. In that respect, Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ reviews offer exceptional added value.
I know from many first-time authors that preparing a manuscript for the journal is a surprisingly taxing undertaking. I can but acknowledge this and I would like to thank our authors for their hard work. The constant increase in EOTP’s usage testifies that the drug discovery community clearly values such efforts. Moreover, the readership is very likely to continue to grow as EOTP has eventually been accepted for indexing on Medline last year – an unfortunately tardy development.
Last year, Expert Opinion’s editorial team gathered feedback from the advisory boards and our readers. This 20th volume of EOTP should reap the first benefits of this consultation. First, the abstract’s structure has been redesigned to better reflect the content of the article. Second, an ‘article highlights’ box has been added to guide the reader through the main points of the paper. Third, EOTP will start publishing one to two themed issues in each volume. The first one, guest-edited by Dr Herbert Kirst from our Editorial Board, will cover antibacterials and will be due later this year.
I expect in 2010 the acceleration of another more gradual addition to the journal. The biotechnologies are now fully integrated to the pharmaceutical area and bear novel promises of therapeutic advances. Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents will logically increase its coverage of biologicals to echo this trend.
I hope this agenda meets our readers’ expectations and that EOTP will remain, above all, a useful resource to professionals in the field.
Joris Roulleau
Senior Editor
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ launch aimed at filling a gap in the life science literature by explicitly including patents within the scope of its review articles. Key to a legal system designed to promote innovation, patents provide exclusive rights to the inventor in return for the full disclosure of the invention to the public. In the specific context of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, this makes patents a particularly valuable source of information for medicinal chemists and other researchers involved in drug discovery. In effect, to protect their promising compounds, companies reveal them at an early preclinical stage and for the first time in patents. Not only do patents divulge the novel compounds, but they also show which are deemed to show clinical potential and offer insights into the competitors’ research programmes.
Patents are not alien to researchers in the industry. However, despite being largely freely available and easily searchable, patents present the information in a somewhat cryptic way. They don’t follow the rules of scientific writing and extracting the relevant knowledge can be time consuming. Patents are long documents worded in legal jargon by specialist attorneys. They often cover dozens of compounds, only a few of which are of genuine interest. These compounds need to be reconstructed from generic structures and of course, they need to be put into context with other related patents as well as the scientific literature.
EOTP’s review articles provide a dramatic shortcut to the essential information by summing up the important scientific content of dozens of patents, putting it into a wider perspective and, of course, expressing the authors’ own critical opinion. They answer fundamental questions such as “what are the structural types of inhibitors? “ and “who are the major players in the field?,” but also go beyond and suggest which compounds are likely to progress to the clinic. In that respect, Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents’ reviews offer exceptional added value.
I know from many first-time authors that preparing a manuscript for the journal is a surprisingly taxing undertaking. I can but acknowledge this and I would like to thank our authors for their hard work. The constant increase in EOTP’s usage testifies that the drug discovery community clearly values such efforts. Moreover, the readership is very likely to continue to grow as EOTP has eventually been accepted for indexing on Medline last year – an unfortunately tardy development.
Last year, Expert Opinion’s editorial team gathered feedback from the advisory boards and our readers. This 20th volume of EOTP should reap the first benefits of this consultation. First, the abstract’s structure has been redesigned to better reflect the content of the article. Second, an ‘article highlights’ box has been added to guide the reader through the main points of the paper. Third, EOTP will start publishing one to two themed issues in each volume. The first one, guest-edited by Dr Herbert Kirst from our Editorial Board, will cover antibacterials and will be due later this year.
I expect in 2010 the acceleration of another more gradual addition to the journal. The biotechnologies are now fully integrated to the pharmaceutical area and bear novel promises of therapeutic advances. Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents will logically increase its coverage of biologicals to echo this trend.
I hope this agenda meets our readers’ expectations and that EOTP will remain, above all, a useful resource to professionals in the field.
Joris Roulleau
Senior Editor
Friday, 20 March 2009
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents and Journal of Medical Economics selected for indexing in MEDLINE
Informa Pharmaceutical Science is delighted to announce that Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents (EOTP) and the Journal of Medical Economics (JME), have been selected for indexing in MEDLINE.
A widely used bibliographic database compiled and maintained by the US National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE is freely accessible via the PubMed search engine. It is worth noting that the decision by MEDLINE to index or not a journal is based on a review by the Literature Selection Technical Review Committee upon application. The main criteria for selection, which go beyond sound science and thorough peer review, are listed here.
We are very pleased by this decision which will deservedly increase the visibility of JME and EOTP articles.
A widely used bibliographic database compiled and maintained by the US National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE is freely accessible via the PubMed search engine. It is worth noting that the decision by MEDLINE to index or not a journal is based on a review by the Literature Selection Technical Review Committee upon application. The main criteria for selection, which go beyond sound science and thorough peer review, are listed here.
We are very pleased by this decision which will deservedly increase the visibility of JME and EOTP articles.
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Finding and using patents for a bibliographical search
Patents are a valuable source of scientific information as well as business intelligence. In the case of the pharmaceutical industry, they provide early insights in a company's research programs and potential drug candidates. However, data contained in patents is often partial, biased and lacks the general objectiveness and perspective of peer-reviewed articles.
This laid the ground for Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents, which proposes critical reviews and analyses of patents (and articles) claiming the discovery of therapeutic compounds.
While authors have no problem at all compiling articles and data from the scientific literature, searching for patents often proves a hurdle. Here is an attempt at helping. A selection of databases and interfaces are briefly described.
Very much like for conventional scientific literature, several web-based interfaces propose search functionalities and access to patent databases. They are available to anyone and there is no need to be an IP professional to understand them. They may be free or require subscription. Search engines vary and it is recommended to read the instructions. However, they usually are obvious and easy enough to use, being not that different from Pubmed or Web of Science for example.
As ever, the selection of keywords is key to a successful search. Try several related or synonymous keywords. Also check if the search engine supports wildcard or truncated searches. The wildcard characters usually are *, ? and #. Boolean combinations and restricting searches to titles or abstracts can be necessary when a search returns too many irrelevant results.
In medicinal chemistry, searching for the molecular target is probably the best bet.
Researchers with access to SciFinder, Thomson Patents or Delphion for example will find these resources useful. Others can try:
I hope this demystifies patent searches.
This laid the ground for Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents, which proposes critical reviews and analyses of patents (and articles) claiming the discovery of therapeutic compounds.
While authors have no problem at all compiling articles and data from the scientific literature, searching for patents often proves a hurdle. Here is an attempt at helping. A selection of databases and interfaces are briefly described.
Very much like for conventional scientific literature, several web-based interfaces propose search functionalities and access to patent databases. They are available to anyone and there is no need to be an IP professional to understand them. They may be free or require subscription. Search engines vary and it is recommended to read the instructions. However, they usually are obvious and easy enough to use, being not that different from Pubmed or Web of Science for example.
As ever, the selection of keywords is key to a successful search. Try several related or synonymous keywords. Also check if the search engine supports wildcard or truncated searches. The wildcard characters usually are *, ? and #. Boolean combinations and restricting searches to titles or abstracts can be necessary when a search returns too many irrelevant results.
In medicinal chemistry, searching for the molecular target is probably the best bet.
Researchers with access to SciFinder, Thomson Patents or Delphion for example will find these resources useful. Others can try:
- European Patent Office, which contains applications from most countries. You can save searches and save most original PDF files through the 'Save Full Document' link in the 'Original Document' tab.
- US Patent and Trademark Office, for US patents (an image can be downloaded)
- World Intellectual Property Organization proposes international patents applications. PDF and zipped TIFF images can be downloaded.
- Free Patents Online, for US, EU and some Japanese patents, as well as documents from the WIPO database. Powerful search engine (including a chemical search option) and access to the PDF files upon free registration.
- Google Patents, PDF available.
I hope this demystifies patent searches.
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
CXCR4 antogonists
Several CCR5 antagonists, which inhibit the entry of HIV-1 in the host cell, have proven a valuable strategy for the treatment of AIDS. However, the virus can switch to the CXCR4 co-receptor to enter cells, thus prompting the need for CXCR4 antagonists.
In a review published in the January issue of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents, Dr Liotta explores the preclinical development of such compounds, and finds that this relatively recent field could offer therapeutic options in several disease areas.
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