Glial cells as drug targets: What does it take?
The last two decades have brought a significant increase in our understanding of glial biology and glial contribution to CNS disease. Yet, despite the fact that glial cells make up the majority of CNS cells, no drug specifically targeting glial cells is on the market. Given the long development times of CNS drugs, on average over 12 years, this is not completely surprising. However, there is increasing interest from academia and industry to exploit glial targets to develop drugs for the benefit of patients with currently limited or no therapeutic options. CNS drug development has a high attrition rate and has encountered many challenges. It seems unlikely that developing drugs against glial targets would be any less demanding. However, the knowledge generated in traditional CNS drug discovery teaches valuable lessons, which could enable the glial community to accelerate the cycle time from basic discovery to drug development. In this review we will discuss steps necessary to bring a "glial target idea" to a clinical development program. GLIA 2016;64:1742-1754.
Neuroinflammation Disease Biology Unit, Lundbeck Research USA, Paramus, New Jersey.
Thomas
T
Möller
Department of Neuroscience, Section of Medical Physiology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
Hendrikus W G M
HW
Boddeke
D000818:Animals; D002493:Central Nervous System Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology; D055808:Drug Discovery; D006801:Humans; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy; D009457:Neuroglia / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology*
assay development; collaboration; drug target; high throughput screen; microglia; reproducibility; screening cascade; target identification; target validation