Up at 5AM: The 5AM Solutions Blog

How Compassionate is Compassionate Use?

Posted on Thu, Jul 02, 2015 @ 03:00 PM

My last post talked about off-label use of drugs, which is one way that patients can get access to drugs that are not officially approved for their condition. There’s another way this can happen, and it’s called compassionate use.

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Tags: clinical trials, map of biomedicine, compassionate use

How to Get Drugs That Haven't Been Approved

Posted on Thu, Jun 18, 2015 @ 03:30 PM

The last two Map of Biomedicine blog posts have introduced us to the clinical trial process. Clinical trials are the gold standard for determining whether a drug works, and are extremely important to make sure that drugs are only used in situations when they are known to help.

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Tags: clinical trials, map of biomedicine, drugs, off label

Genes, Drugs, and Diagnostics: How Clinical Trials Work

Posted on Wed, May 27, 2015 @ 11:25 AM

In my last Map of Biomedicine blog post, I talked about the different phases of clinical trials and a little bit about how trials are structured. I mentioned that trial is really just an experiment designed to test a hypothesis. When you studied science in school you learned about the scientific method:

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Tags: clinical trials, personalized medicine, map of biomedicine, genes, drugs

New Studies Could Lead to New Diagnostics for Alzheimer's Disease

Posted on Thu, May 21, 2015 @ 03:30 PM

Two new studies published in JAMA this week confirm that amyloid plaques on the brain predict future Alzheimer's Disease (AD). What's more, there is evidence that the plaques appear decades before patients experience the cognitive declines associated with AD. Researchers have long suspected that amyloid plaques precede the disease, but according to an article in the New York Times, this new research is "[t]he largest analysis to date of amyloid plaques in people’s brains [and it] confirms that the presence of the substance can help predict who will develop Alzheimer’s and determine who has the disease."

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Tags: research, clinical trials, map of biomedicine, diagnostics, Alzheimer's Disease

New Standard Moves NGS Closer to Clinical Practice

Posted on Tue, May 19, 2015 @ 03:00 PM

Last week, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST,) working through the  Genome in a Bottle Consortium (GIABC) (a NIST-funded and initiated working group) pushed next generation sequencing (NGS) a little closer to being adopted into regular clinical practice. NIST/GIABC have released a standard for measuring the accuracy of genetic tests. 

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Tags: personalized medicine, map of biomedicine, genetic testing, NGS Sequencing

Getting Drugs to (More) Patients - Global Edition

Posted on Tue, May 12, 2015 @ 04:30 PM

The newest installments in the Map of Biomedicine blog posts take us down the routes that get drugs to patients, primarily in the United States. Of course, we are all patients at one time or other regardless of where we live. Without a doubt, the route to getting effective therapies from the lab to your local pharmacist is convoluted and expensive even if you live in a wealthy nation. If you don't, making the most effective treatments available to the people who need them most in middle- and low-income nations is more difficult.   

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Tags: map of biomedicine, drug development, drugs, World Health Oranization

Clinical Trial Basics on the Map of Biomedicine

Posted on Thu, May 07, 2015 @ 02:00 PM

As I said in my last post, one of the key components of the Map of Biomedicine is how new treatments get developed. That’s one of the parts of the map that is highlighted, as shown below.

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Tags: clinical trials, biomedicine, map of biomedicine, drug development, Vignette 2

Download the Map of Biomedicine - Ebook Edition

Posted on Thu, Apr 23, 2015 @ 02:17 PM

It’s finally here: the Map of Biomedicine ebook!

Last year, 5AM’s Chief Science Officer Will FitzHugh started to make notes about the vast -- and expanding -- field for which we develop software: biomedicine. Originally, his purpose was keeping all of the players straight so that he and 5AM’s software development teams could have a big-picture view of the context that our clients work in, as well as details like the regulatory processes and technological shifts that impact human health.

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Tags: biomedicine, map of biomedicine, diagnostic test development

The Map of Biomedicine Returns: Getting Drugs to Patients

Posted on Tue, Apr 07, 2015 @ 03:00 PM

In my Map of Biomedicine blog posts, so far, I’ve focused on how diagnostics get to market. But you may recall that way back in my first post I discussed the major themes of the map - what I called ‘vignettes’. The first vignette was the development of diagnostic tests, which is what I’ve focused on so far. Those blog posts are being collected and expanded in an e-book which will be released soon, so keep an eye out for that.

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Tags: personalized medicine, biomedicine, map of biomedicine, drugs

5AM Solutions CSO Will FitzHugh Wins Executive Management Award

Posted on Tue, Mar 10, 2015 @ 03:00 PM

Last night, 5AM Solutions' Chief Science Officer Will FitzHugh was among the honorees at SmartCEO magazine's Washington Executive Management Awards. If you haven't worked with him directly, you might know Will from this blog. Most recently, he was the author of the Map of Biomedicine series (stay tuned for an upcoming ebook...) and he has also written about newborn screening and big data.

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Tags: Big Data, map of biomedicine, 5AM, newborn screening

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