Nuclear Imaging In Drug Discovery Development And Approval

It is the purpose and business of the pharmaceutical industry to dis cover, develop, and make available drugs for the care of the sick. The purpose of universities and national laboratories is to provide people and scientific knowledge that can help in the process. This book presents the combined efforts of scientists from the drug in dustry, academic laboratories and national laboratories to describe advances in radiotracer technology in studies on experimental ani mals and living human beings. The authors believe that the technol ogy is now ready for widespread application in the pharmaceutical industry. The goal of this book is to help bring this about. The field of Nuclear Medicine is based on the concept that, if treatment of disease is chemical, the patient's diagnosis should be chemical. Anatomy and histopathology have been the principle ba sis for making a diagnosis. Histopathologic data suffer from being descriptive, subjective, not quantifiable, and based on the study of dead tissue. The era of histopathology as the dominant concept in medical practice is coming to an end. Histopathologic findings are often heterogeneous and a single biopsy will at times not reveal the true nature of the disease, such as the grading of malignancy. Far greater accuracy of staging of disease and in the planning of treat ment is possible through chemistry, as well as by making possible a more suitable selection of a histological biopsy site.

This monograph examines the contribution of imaging modalities to the stages of drug discovery and development, from early target validation to their use in clinical development programs. Chapters are devoted to the description of the drug discovery process, to the various imaging modalities preclinically and clinically, to applications of imaging during the optimization of a lead compound, addressing issues such as bioavailability and efficacy, and during drug safety evaluation.

Nearly 20 million nuclear medicine procedures are carried out each year in the United States alone to diagnose and treat cancers, cardiovascular disease, and certain neurological disorders. Many of the advancements in nuclear medicine have been the result of research investments made during the past 50 years where these procedures are now a routine part of clinical care. Although nuclear medicine plays an important role in biomedical research and disease management, its promise is only beginning to be realized. Advancing Nuclear Medicine Through Innovation highlights the exciting emerging opportunities in nuclear medicine, which include assessing the efficacy of new drugs in development, individualizing treatment to the patient, and understanding the biology of human diseases. Health care and pharmaceutical professionals will be most interested in this book's examination of the challenges the field faces and its recommendations for ways to reduce these impediments.

The very rapid pace of advances in biomedical research promises us a wide range of new drugs, medical devices, and clinical procedures. The extent to which these discoveries will benefit the public, however, depends in large part on the methods we choose for developing and testing them. Modern Methods of Clinical Investigation focuses on strategies for clinical evaluation and their role in uncovering the actual benefits and risks of medical innovation. Essays explore differences in our current systems for evaluating drugs, medical devices, and clinical procedures; health insurance databases as a tool for assessing treatment outcomes; the role of the medical profession, the Food and Drug Administration, and industry in stimulating the use of evaluative methods; and more. This book will be of special interest to policymakers, regulators, executives in the medical industry, clinical researchers, and physicians.

This book is a comprehensive guide to radiopharmaceutical chemistry. The stunning clinical successes of nuclear imaging and targeted radiotherapy have resulted in rapid growth in the field of radiopharmaceutical chemistry, an essential component of nuclear medicine and radiology. However, at this point, interest in the field outpaces the academic and educational infrastructure needed to train radiopharmaceutical chemists. For example, the vast majority of texts that address radiopharmaceutical chemistry do so only peripherally, focusing instead on nuclear chemistry (i.e. nuclear reactions in reactors), heavy element radiochemistry (i.e. the decomposition of radioactive waste), or solely on the clinical applications of radiopharmaceuticals (e.g. the use of PET tracers in oncology). This text fills that gap by focusing on the chemistry of radiopharmaceuticals, with key coverage of how that knowledge translates to the development of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals for the clinic. The text is divided into three overarching sections: First Principles, Radiochemistry, and Special Topics. The first is a general overview covering fundamental and broad issues like “The Production of Radionuclides” and “Basics of Radiochemistry”. The second section is the main focus of the book. In this section, each chapter’s author will delve much deeper into the subject matter, covering both well established and state-of-the-art techniques in radiopharmaceutical chemistry. This section will be divided according to radionuclide and will include chapters on radiolabeling methods using all of the common nuclides employed in radiopharmaceuticals, including four chapters on the ubiquitously used fluorine-18 and a “Best of the Rest” chapter to cover emerging radionuclides. Finally, the third section of the book is dedicated to special topics with important information for radiochemists, including “Bioconjugation Methods,” “Click Chemistry in Radiochemistry”, and “Radiochemical Instrumentation.” This is an ideal educational guide for nuclear medicine physicians, radiologists, and radiopharmaceutical chemists, as well as residents and trainees in all of these areas.