Recent Patents on Inflammation & Allergy Drug Discovery - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2012

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic disabling autoimmune disease that significantly impacts the quality of life of patients, and can associate with several complications including end-stage renal disease and shortened lifespan. A central component in the pathogenesis of SLE is the B-cell production of autoantibodies to multiple selfantigens. Since, B lymphocyte stimulator (BLyS) plays a key role in the selection, di Read More

Discovery of small molecular inhibitors for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis is a major ongoing effort within the pharmaceutical industry. Spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) is one of leading small molecular targets with regard to clinical development primarlly due to efforts by Rigel and Portola. In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview of the SYK patent landscape. The patent literature we evaluated relates to any organ Read More

Adenotonsillar disease (adenoiditis and recurrent tonsillitis) is a prevalent otolaryngologic disorder aetiologically based on chronic inflammation triggered by a persistent bacterial infection. These bacteria, mostly Staphylococcus aureus, Haemophilus sp., and Streptococcus sp., persist predominantly intracellular and within mucosal biofilms. The recurrent or chronic inflammation of the adenoids and faucial tonsils leads Read More

Minoxidil, a vasodilator medication known for its ability to slow or stop hair loss and promote hair regrowth, was first introduced, exclusively as an oral drug, to treat high blood pressure. It was however discovered to have the important side-effect of increasing growth or darkening of fine body hairs; this led to the development of a topical formulation as a 2% concentration solution for the treatment of female androgenic alopec Read More

Inflammation is a complex integrated host response to infection and injury. Inflammatory cells respond to foreign substances and inflammatory stimulus by producing various chemical bioactive mediators such as prostanoids, cytokines and chemokines. These mediators have complex, pleiotropic effects and interact with many cell types and cellular pathways to amplify the inflammatory response. Dysregulation of these Read More

Recently, much interest has been generated for a wide range of phyto-constituents with reports demonstrating their role in the modulation of inflammatory responses, including phenolics, alkaloids, and terpenoids. Natural products have long been, over the years, contributed to the development of modern therapeutic drugs. At present, steroids, antihistaminic drugs, suppressants or inhibitors of the release of mediat Read More

Sepsis continues to be a very important cause of morbidity and mortality despite advances in modern medicine. It is the cause of mortality in approximately 28-50% of the patients, with the risk increasing particularly in patients with multiple organ dysfunctions. Although anti-infective treatment and securing hemostasis form the cornerstone in the management of this condition, studies to develop new drugs are expect Read More

The patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases. These recent patents are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue, categorized by therapeutic areas/targets & therapeutic agents related to inflammation and allergy drug discovery....