Future Challenges
Respiratory Diseases
The Merck Frosst Centre for Therapeutic Research has a long history of innovation in respiratory diseases. Many seeds of fruitful research projects were planted during the 20-year development history of SINGULAIR® (montelukast sodium), the first once-a-day oral asthma medication for adults and children as young as six.
Research into asthma continues to be a challenge, with the focus now turning to phosphodiesterase-4 (PDE4), an enzyme implicated in the release of mediators involved in asthma, such as leukotrienes. PDE4 inhibitors developed by the Montréal scientists from a collaboration with a U.K. company are showing great promise as potentially "safe steroids"-compounds that down-regulate inflammatory cells in the lung without adverse effects on other body functions such as bone growth, which can be slowed by steroid medications.
Allergic rhinitis (hay fever and house-dust allergies) is also an area of current interest; not least because clinical trials of SINGULAIR® have provided evidence for its effectiveness in this condition.
Allergic rhinitis is the most common allergic disease, with one in five Canadian adults affected. Each year in Canada millions of people are treated for hay fever or house-dust allergies (perennial allergic rhinitis). Although allergic rhinitis is not life-threatening, it causes a great deal of misery for the sufferer, results in countless lost days of work and school and can lead to complications such as ear infections, especially in children.
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