Upcoming techniques in drug development

摘要

Under development are new techniques that have the potential to define subpopulations of patients which may or may not respond to targeted therapy. Better definition of resistance mechanisms against monoclonal antibodies or tyrosine kinase inhibitors will be one approach to achieve this goal. Progress has been made in the detection of these mechanisms when targeting the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor family. Pro-teomics either performed by imaging techniques or by methods such as matrix-assisted desorption/ionisation time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry requires further standardisation and validation. A mass spectroscopy-based pre-treatment patient selection system is under development that is highly reproducible and capable of classifying patients by survival.