Just before Roche announced a lowball bid to take over the biopharmaceutical powerhouse Genentech, a team comprised of scientists from both companies unveiled an underwhelming experimental cancer drug in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
Hopefully, the prospective medication is not symbolic of what the once-innovative biotech company will become if the deal goes through – a dull copycat.
The new substance works by halting cell division, a tactic employed by many treatments that slow the disease without curing it completely. Several other companies, including Merck and Pfizer, are testing compounds that strike the exact same biological targets, enzymes called aurora kinases.
Roche and Genentech may decide not to commercialize the drug candidate, but the fact that they invested in such a vanilla approach to cancer treatment is alarming.
Photo: worak / flickr
