Qualification of biomarkers for drug development in organ transplantation.
The drug development process is dependent upon having established end points for measuring drug efficacy and adverse effects. New drug development in organ transplantation suffers from having end points which are either outdated or which do not serve the purpose of addressing the current critical drug therapy problems. Numerous biomarkers have been examined in organ transplantation, but almost all would be classified as exploratory for drug development purposes. Some of the possible pathways out of this dilemma include investigator- or consortium-initiated research that would qualify the biomarkers as either probable or known valid biomarkers, help in identification of new end points in transplantation and their associated biomarkers, co-development of a new biomarker and drug for transplantation and the use of new clinical trial design methods which facilitate enriched or stratified transplant patient populations. With new biomarkers and new study design methodologies for drug development, improvement in the drug development process for transplantation is a real possibility that the transplant clinical and research community can help to bring about.
Burckart
Gilbert J
GJ
School of Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. burckart@usc.edu
Amur
Shashi
S
Goodsaid
Federico M
FM
Lesko
Lawrence J
LJ
Frueh
Felix W
FW
Huang
Shiew-Mei
SM
Cavaille-Coll
Marc W
MW
D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis*; D006085:Graft Survival / Q000276:immunology / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000276:immunology / Q000502:physiology*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D014181:Transplantation Immunology; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014481:United States; D014486:United States Food and Drug Administration
D015415:Biomarkers; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents