Overview

Based on advances in chemical biology and network science, network pharmacology is a distinctive new approach to drug discovery. It involves application of network analysis to determine the set of proteins most critical in any disease, and then chemical biology to identify molecules capable of targeting that set of proteins. By addressing the true complexity of disease and by seeking to harness the ability of drugs to influence many different proteins, network pharmacology differs from conventional drug discovery approaches, which have generally been based on highly specific targeting of a single protein. Network pharmacology has the potential to provide new treatments for complex diseases where conventional approaches have failed to deliver satisfactory therapies.

e-Therapeutics' Network Pharmacology Platform

e-Therapeutics has developed a proprietary platform in network pharmacology. The Company uses this platform to analyse networks of proteins associated with particular diseases. In each case it identifies a disease signature, a set of points in the network at which intervention would have maximum impact. e-Therapeutics then seeks drug candidates whose footprint – the set of proteins impacted by the presence of the drug – matches the relevant disease signature. Current work with the platform is focused particularly in cancer and degenerative diseases of the nervous system.  Drugs discovered previously for cancer and depression have now progressed into our clinical development pipeline.

Resources

Recent article in Nature Medicine (subscription required) about the growing significance of network pharmacology as an approach.

We intend to add more materials to this section in due course.