U.S. launches program to better pinpoint drugs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. health officials on Thursday announced a new program to help pinpoint sooner what chemicals could make effective drugs as well as whether certain medicines work better in specific patients.

The initiative, a collaboration between pharmaceutical manufacturers, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, aims to raise funds and provide grants for research on specific biological indicators that can point to certain conditions such as diabetes or cancer.

Such indicators, known as biomarkers, could also help shave years off the time it takes to bring a new product to market in a number of ways, including helping to pick better patients for clinical trials, officials said.

"We just can't wait for years and years and years of observation to find out whether or not something has been effective. We need to have better tools," NIH Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni said at press conference.

Representatives for the pharmaceutical industry, which is largely funding the effort, said the research could help companies develop new drugs faster as well as help discover potential side effects earlier.

The findings will be publicly available and shared between researchers and companies, officials added.

"What is expected of us is to be able to determine sooner when our products are in fact safe and sooner whether there will be adverse effects and to shift our approach accordingly," said Jim Greenwood, head of the Biotechnology Industry Organization industry group.

Financial sponsors so far include most major drug companies, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Merck & Co. Inc., and Pfizer Inc., among others.

The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health will oversee the program, which has nearly $9 million in funding for administrative costs and two initial projects targeted at lung cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.