Getting Ghrelin's GOAT

When the discovery of ghrelin was reported in 1999, the appetite-stimulating hormone was hotly pursued by biotech and pharma companies, with agonists aimed at treating various wasting syndromes and antagonists geared toward treating obesity.¹ However, a number of ghrelin modulators have since fallen off the map because of unwanted side effects or a lack of efficacy.

Companies continuing to pursue ghrelin suspect that the stumbles of their peers were compound specific. Now, researchers at theUniversity of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and colleagues have identified the enzyme that activates ghrelin, thus providing a target for indirectly modulating the hormone...