Vertex plays leapfrog

Technology Briefing

While genomics identifies ever more specific protein targets associated with disease states, it is important to recall the universality of some molecular mechanisms. Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. has put a compound originally intended as a multidrug resistance inhibitor for cancer into the clinic for an entirely different indication, diabetic neuropathy. The move has leapfrogged VRTX past competitors Guilford Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Amgen Inc. in the promising area of neuroimmunophilins...