There is a blog done by a pharmaceutical researcher that small circle of bloggers has linked me to more than one. Anyone remember what it is? Yeah, and I'm coming to your site to ask, too.
Something we could really use in the mental health field occurred to me today. We can do some medication bloodlevels quickly and easily, but some need to be sent to specialized labs and take two weeks to come back. In acute psychiatric emergencies, two weeks is forever. It occurred to me that an easily-detected marker chemical could be put into those medications, so we could at least quickly discover whether they are being taken at all.
Maybe it's not an original idea, but we could sure use it, and I'd like to pass it on to someone well-placed to make it happen.
Do you mean Derek Lowe at Corante?
ReplyDeletehttp://pipeline.corante.com/
Yes! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThe clinical trial$$$ required by the FDA would probably kill the idea.
ReplyDeleteWhy not give the patient two prescriptions, one for the drug of interest, and one containing a benign marker compound that can be easily tested for in-house. If your in-house tests show that the patient is taking the marker, then he's likely also taking the other drug as well. You can confirm with your two-week assay later on.
If you use this idea and publish the results in a paper, I expect to be listed as a contributing author. :)
BB - that's what Lowe though would be the obstacle as well. It would take a whole Phase I, II, III trials series.
ReplyDeleteSimpler would be an indicator strip that the patient urinates on that indicates byproducts of taken meds. Wouldn't need FDA trials then and strips are relatively cheap to make, especially if quantities are not required. You ought to suggest.
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