Helen Branswell is covering the Toronto conference and offers some good news via C-Health: New drugs, new drug targets make prospects brighter for flu drug pipeline. Excerpt:
Potential flu drugs in development and newly identified targets for flu drugs suggest the era of dependence on merely two classes of influenza drugs could end in the next few years, experts at a major influenza conference here suggested Tuesday.
"The potential for development of other drugs is quite significant at the present time," Dr. Alan Hay of the National Institute for Medical Research in London said in a presentation to the Options for the Control of Influenza Conference.
With concerns about a possible flu pandemic, public health officials have worried that the reliance on only four flu drugs from two drug classes leaves the world in a vulnerable position.
But work presented at the conference points to progress in lessening that vulnerability, said Dr. Frederick Hayden, an antiviral expert with the World Health Organization.
"The pipeline is not full, but it's certainly more robust than it was some years ago," Hayden said.
One of the promising things about the work is that the drugs and drug targets that are in the pipeline would diversify the number of classes of flu drugs if they are successfully brought to market. That, in turn, would lower the risk posed by drug resistance.
