Drug Discovery of the Year 2015 opens for nominations

21 May 2014, London UK: The British Pharmacological Society is now accepting nominations from anyone in the world for its third Drug Discovery of the Year award.

The award was established by the Society in 2012 to demonstrate the importance of pharmacology in the development of new medicines, and to reward the achievements of the teams of scientists who discover and develop these drugs.

Previous winners

Drug Discovery of the Year 2013: the Genentech team who developed vismodegib

Drug Discovery of the Year 2014: the GlaxoSmithKline team responsible for trametinib

Professor Humphrey Rang, BPS President, comments: “The British Pharmacological Society was encouraged by the exceptional quality of the nominations received last year. I am delighted to announce the call for submissions to our third Drug Discovery of the Year award and to welcome nominations from across all disease areas that demonstrate the importance of both pre-clinical and clinical pharmacology in translating early discoveries into medicines that benefit patients.”

The Society’s Industry Committee will consider nominations for the discovery team behind a drug – whether a large or a small molecule – that best fulfils the following criteria:

·         preclinical to clinical translation shows the importance of both preclinical and clinical pharmacology in the drug discovery/development process

·         gained regulatory approval within the last three years in the EU and/or US

·         has a significant impact on an unmet medical need

·         first-in-class, or is a significant improvement over other drugs in the class

·         mechanism of action known

Nominations must be received by 1 October 2014. The winning team will be publicly announced during the Society’s flagship meeting Pharmacology 2014, held in London on 16-18 December 2014, and attended by an anticipated 1,000 pharmacologists.

The award does not promote the administration, consumption, prescription, purchase, recommendation, sale, supply or use of the winning medicine; nor does it pre-empt any regulatory decisions. Further information is available from www.bps.ac.uk