Article

Cachexia Insights: Helping Improve Quality of Life in Chronically Ill Patients

It’s an experience familiar to almost anyone with a family member or friend who has fought a terminal illness, such as cancer or heart failure. In the final stages of life, it can seem as though their loved one is wasting away. This dramatic loss of muscle and fat is caused by cachexia, a wasting disorder that afflicts patients in the late stage of nearly every chronic illness. It’s the immediate cause of death in nearly 20 to 40 percent of cancer patients. “So many people can relate to someone...

From Nĭ Hăo to Better Potential Medicines: How Language Translation Technology Is Being Applied to Drug Design

This is the first in a two-part series. If you’ve ever used Google Translate, you’ve seen how the app can effortlessly translate between two very different languages, such as going from English to Chinese. Now, the same technology is being applied to a new challenge: building better medicines. This technology, known as sequence-to-sequence (Seq2Seq), is a type of machine learning framework behind many of the language-processing apps we use today — from Siri and Alexa to customer service...

Real People

New Podcast, ‘The Antigen,’ Takes a Deep Dive into the Story of Vaccines

When we decided to create a podcast about vaccines, Yasmeen Agosti, MD was a natural choice to host . For many years, vaccines have been an enormous part of Agosti’s life, first as a pediatrician, now as the global medical affairs lead for viral vaccines at Pfizer. In our new audio series, called “The Antigen,” she delves into in the fascinating world of immunization, exploring the science and story behind vaccines, the rise of the anti-vaccination movement and the many social, cultural and...

Meet the Team: Homegrown Therapies Get Ready to Fight NASH

One of the biggest public health problems of our time is likely soon to face off with a new wave of cutting-edge medicines. As non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a severe form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD, continues to be a growing public health threat, scientists are racing to develop treatments. There is currently no FDA-approved medicine for NASH, but nearly 50 candidates, including three from Pfizer, are in clinical testing — one or more which will hopefully be the next...

How Next-Generation Sequencing Is Helping to Build Better Vaccines

If you’ve ever tried an at-home genetic testing kit, you’re familiar with whole-genome sequencing, the technology that allows people to quickly and easily map their DNA. This same technology is now being used to track the genomes of potentially deadly microbes. During global disease outbreaks, scientists have long used genotyping tools to understand pathogens and track genetic changes. But in recent years, as the sequencing technology has become faster and more affordable, researchers are...

Living & Wellbeing

How Clean Are Your Hands?

  Daily commitment to good hand hygiene will help to protect not only yourself, but also those around you, against life-threatening infections every single day. How? Well, most of the germs that make us sick are transferred through direct or indirect contact with contaminated hands or surfaces. Our hands carry on average 3,200 different germs belonging to more than 150 species – of which some can be harmful and cause infection – and improved handwashing technique can reduce their transmission...

Living & Wellbeing

Matter of Moments: Recognizing AFib-Stroke Risk

AFib Fast Facts: Atrial fibrillation, or AFib, is a common type of an irregular heartbeat.4 During AFib, the upper chambers of the heart beat irregularly, or too quickly, and do not pump all of the blood to the lower chambers, causing some blood to pool, and potentially form clots. If a clot breaks loose, it can travel to the brain and lead to a stroke.4 The prevalence of AFib is higher in people aged 65 and older. About 9% of people aged 65 years or older have AFib...

Science & Innovation

Through Data, Digital Medicine Paints a More Complete Patient Picture

Wearable devices have become a common way for people to count their steps, monitor their heart rate, track their sleep and collect other health data. These kinds of devices are becoming increasingly important in the realm of “digital medicine” as well. At the Pfizer Innovation Research, or PfIRe Lab, wearable devices are adding a new dimension to clinical trials, helping scientists monitor symptoms, assess health and better understand how treatments work. Digital medicine may be able to...

Living & Wellbeing

A Closer Look at NASH

Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a growing public health issue, affecting an estimated three to five percent of the global adult population.[i] It typically progresses slowly with few – if any – obvious or visible symptoms[ii],[iii], making it a largely unrecognized and underdiagnosed disease. Many physicians are not intimately familiar with NASH, and, for many patients, their diagnosis is the first time they’ve heard the term. NASH, by definition, is a serious, progressive form of non...

Real People

Getting to Know Kristin Tompkins; A Day In The Life of a Pfizer Scientist in Our Pearl River Labs

Over 20 years later and Kristin Tompkins still finds a thrill working as a principal scientist on viral vaccines in Pfizer’s research & development group, at our Pearl River, New York site. Starting out as an assistant researcher, Kristin has been able to be a part of some of the amazing breakthroughs that Pfizer has accomplished. We sat down with Kristin to learn more about her role and as a member of the Pfizer family. Tell us about your work and what your typical day is like. I have had...

Science & Innovation

Unlocking the Secrets of the Immune System

The immune system consists of dozens of different cell types that are designed to protect and defend against infection. But sometimes, immune cells can respond in a way that can actually cause disease—for example, when certain cell types either over- or underact. In the field of immunology, scientists are studying how to disrupt or manage these different immune responses to improve health. In cancer, for example, the immune system is turned off or muted, while in inflammatory disorders, the...

Science & Innovation

The Process of Naming Pharmaceutical Drugs

Micronase. Daypro. Tessalon. Each of those names began on a list of hundreds of options, and the process to approve that name may have begun years prior to even the drug’s approval.The first part of this two-part series on how drugs are named explored the process for coming up with the generic name for a medication. This article explores how drugs get their brand name.Coming up with a safe brand nameUnlike generic names, brand names aren’t tied to particular suffixes, and that allows for more...