Report on Epigenomic Therapies Highlights Changes in Drug Development Priorities

A report recently released to the biotech industry predicts sharp growth in research efforts to develop drugs for epigenomic therapies for cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and neurological dysfunctions.

The report, Epigenomics, Present and Future Applications for Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics, which was prepared by Kalorama Information (New York, NY, USA), indicates a major shift in thinking about how epigenomic therapies will be impacting drug development research priorities and budgets.

The report states that drugs that target the epigenome offer a number of important advantages over other forms of cancer treatment; most notably they can be taken orally, saving the patient discomfort, cost and inconvenience. They are also more focused specifically against their target.

“Rather than blasting away machine gun style at the malignancy, they aim at a very specific reaction site within the cell,” said the author of the report Dr. K. John Morrow, Jr., an analyst at Kalorama Information. “So far their side effects have proven to be relatively minor.”

“At present the major pharmaceutical companies are faced with a downward spiral of profitability,” said Dr. Morrow. “Epigenomic technologies represent an escape from this corrosive cycle of greater and greater R&D expenditures and poorer and poorer yields of FDA-approved pharmaceuticals.”

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