I attended the Mendelian randomization meeting in Bristol, UK this past week (link to the program’s oral abstracts here). The meeting was timed with the release of a number of articles in the International Journal of Epidemiology (current issue here, Volume 44, No. 2 April 2015 TOC here). This blog is a brief synopsis of the meeting – with a focus on human genetics and drug discovery. The blog includes links to several slide decks, as well as references to several published reviews and studies.

[Disclaimer: I am a Merck/MSD employee. The opinions I am expressing are my own and do not necessarily represent the position of my employer.]

Several speakers, including Lon Cardon from GSK, gave overview talks on how Mendelian randomization can be applied to pharmaceutical development. In my overview, I described important guiding principles for successful drug discovery (link to my slides here), and how Mendelian randomization (MR) is applied within this framework. In particular, I emphasized the role of establishing causality in the human system: MR is a powerful tool to pick targets by estimating safety and efficacy (i.e., genotype-phenotype dose-response curves) at the time of target identification and validation; MR is effective at picking biomarkers for target modulation; and MR provides quantitative modeling of clinical proof-of-concept (POC) studies.…

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We held our second annual GpGx retreat last week at the Dolce Norwalk Conference Center in Norwalk, CT. The theme was “integrate and elevate”: integrate across Translational Medicine and elevate our mission to infuse cutting-edge genetics and genomics into Merck’s pipeline. What follows is a brief recount of the event.

For those who don’t like looking at photos of someone else’s family vacation, this blog post might not be for you. However, for those curious about life within pharma – read on! You might be surprised that the basic principles that create a strong community within academics or a small biotechnology company are at play within a large company like Merck. I also provide examples of Translational Medicine in action: picking the right target based on causal human biology; developing the right biomarkers based on mechanistic insight of the target; selecting therapeutic molecules (e.g., biologics) in a modality independent manner; and testing clinical proof-of-concept (POC) in small Phase Ib/IIa clinical studies.

[Disclaimer: I am a Merck/MSD employee. The opinions I am expressing are my own and do not necessarily represent the position of my employer.]

At the start of the retreat, I provided an overview on our theme: “integrate and elevate” (see slides here).…

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