New drug innovations discussed at pharmaceutical conference in Vienna

Time-delayed release, the idea that active ingredients in medicines release into the body at a controlled time, could help to prevent diseases such as heart attacks and strokes that occur particularly often in the first three hours after waking in the morning, according to Professor Howard Stevens from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Xinhua reports.

Professor Stevens, presenting his research in front of roughly 2,500 attendees, said current medications are effective quite quickly, and nobody wakes in the night to take more in order to be covered for the morning hours. Innovations to release active ingredients at just the right time would help achieve the maximum effect of the pills, he said.

Another hot topic discussed at the meeting was "more targeted therapy," which aims to have the active ingredients in pills placed precisely at the parts of the intestine affected by the disease.

The therapy, once brought to clinical use, could be used to treat diseases such as chronic inflammatory bowel diseases and in the chemotherapeutic agents used against colon cancer, according to Professor Henderik Frijlink from the University of Groningen in Netherlands.