In 1983, Keith McCormack co-founded the McCormack Drug Research Group which in 1985 was incorporated in the UK as McCormack Ltd. In recent times, McCormack Ltd is also known as McCormack Pharma through its recently-developed website.
Upon inception in 1983, in addition to designing and supervising pre-clinical and early phase clinical studies, McCormack Drug Research Group pioneered the application of novel in silico methods of data analysis that exploited the use of existing data for a selected brand. These early methods allowed a re-evaluation and reinterpretation of product data in the context of the most up-to-date understanding of the brand’s licensed indications. In this way, McCormack developed a niche service that offered clients the opportunity to reinvent established brands without recourse to expensive, protracted and high-risk new studies.
In the early 90s, in continuing to specialize in the mining and analysis of existing data, McCormack’s methods and algorithms became increasingly automated through the use of customized relational databases. These databases were powered and adapted by McCormack for the discovery of original and previously-unknown relationships between a brand’s data and the data that characterizes a licensed indication. Collectively, these latest developments were subsequently subsumed by the acronym, CEME (Cutting-Edge Medical Education). It is the use of CEME that distinguishes McCormack as the only organization with technology that enables differentiation of a brand through the generation of new teachings.
In today’s volatile and frequently uncertain pharma landscape, McCormack’s CEME technology offers clients a reliable, rapid and extremely economical solution for identifying new value and opportunities for any brand. Excitingly, McCormack’s proprietary technology has also been identified as an essential prelude for refining searches of real-world data and designing point-of-care longitudinal studies for brands at any stage in the lifecycle.
Keith McCormack is ranked as the foremost authority on innovation and invention in the discovery, development and commercialization of new opportunities for drugs within the approved pharmacopoeia.1
Keith trained as a Neurophysiologist at the University of Liverpool in the UK and is acknowledged as a thought leader in Pain Research. He is the recipient of many awards and honours and for many years has lectured worldwide, particularly within states and territories of emerging nations. He is the author of numerous articles on pain and its management, including neurological disorders, and is noted for his work with the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory group of drugs (NSAIDs). His contribution in elucidating spinal mechanisms of action of NSAID analgesics is acknowledged as pioneering and is included within the approved study list of the International Association of Pain (IASP) Core Curriculum.2,3
In 1998 his seminal work on opioid analgesia published in PAIN challenged traditional methods used to classify and characterize opioid agonists,4 and in 1999 he provided the first comprehensive teleological argument for intractable pain.5-7 Subsequently, both of these major works have enabled a re-evaluation of existing product data resulting in new opportunities for discovering lead candidates, and new opportunities in utilizing existing drugs as analgesics. In 2011, without recourse to original experimentation, he showed how desktop methods of correlation and association could be used to determine the basis of non-responsiveness to a much-prescribed anti-platelet drug. His exacting methods in this investigation identified for the first time mechanisms that were unrelated to cytochrome P450 enzyme loss-of-function polymorphisms. In a personal communication to a mentor he acknowledged that this discovery was a landmark and a moment of great personal achievement in his career.
1 Pharmaceutical Executive Europe July/August 2006
McCormack K, Brune K. ‘Classical absorption theory and the development of gastric mucosal damage associated with the nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs’. Arch Toxicol 1987 60 261-269.
McCormack K, Brune K. ‘Dissociation between the antinociceptive and the antiinflammatory effects of the nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs. A survey of their analgesic efficacy’. Drugs 1991 41(4) 533-547.
McCormack K. ‘Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and spinal nociceptive processing’. Pain 1994 59 9-43.
McCormack K, Davies R. ‘The enigma of potassium ion in the management of dentine hypersensitivity. Is nitric oxide the elusive second messenger?’ Pain 1996 68(1) 5-11.
McCormack K, Prather P, Chapleo C. ‘Some new insights into the effects of opioids in phasic and tonic nociceptive tests’. Pain 1998 78(2) 79-98.
McCormack K. ‘Signal transduction in neuropathic pain with special emphasis upon the analgesic role of opioids. Part I. The basic science of phenotype expression in the normal nerve and the regenerating nerve’. Pain Reviews 1999 6(1) 3-34.
McCormack K. ‘Signal transduction in neuropathic pain with special emphasis upon the analgesic role of opioids. Part II. Moving basic science toward a new pharmacotherapy’. Pain Reviews 1999 6(2) 99-131.
McCormack K. ‘A new perspective on signal transduction in neuropathic pain. The emerging role of the G protein beta gamma dimer in transducing and modulating opioid signaling’. In: Pain - Current Understanding, Emerging Therapies and Novel Approaches to Drug Therapy Eds. Munglani, Schmidt and Bountra, Taylor & Francis 2003 pp71-86.
McCormack K. ‘The cardioprotective effect of dexrazoxane (Cardioxane) is consistent with sequestration of poly(ADP-ribose) by self-assembly and not depletion of topoisomerase 2B’. Ecancermedicalscience 2018 12 889.
McCormack K. ‘Dexrazoxane: Exposing the Vulnerability of SARS-CoV-2’. Preprints.org 2022, 2022120175 (Link to online version)
Notable Publications
McCormack K. ‘Mathematical model for assessing risk of gastrointestinal reactions to NSAIDs’. In: Azapropazone, 20 Years of Clinical Use. Ed: Rainsford KD. Publisher: Kluwer Academic, Lancaster, UK. 1989, pp. 81-94.
McCormack K, Brune K. ‘The OTC use of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and other antipyretic analgesics’. In: Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs: Mechanisms and Clinical Use, 2nd Edition. Eds: Lewis AJ and Furst D. Publisher: Marcell Dekker Inc, New York, 1994, pp 97-126.
McCormack K, Brune K. ‘Toward defining the analgesic role of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs in the management of acute soft tissue injuries’. Clin J Sport Med 1993 3(2) 106-117.
McCormack K. ‘The spinal actions of NSAIDs and the dissociation between antiinflammatory and analgesic effects’. Proceedings of a meeting at the World Congress Inflammation '93, Neuronal Plasticity - Implications for pain therapy. Guest Editors : McCormack K and Gebhart G. Drugs 1994 47(5) 28-45.
McCormack K, Urquhart E. ‘Correlation between nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug efficacy in a clinical pain model and the dissociation of their anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties in animal models’. Clinical Drug Investigation 1995 9(2) 88-97.
McCormack K, Chapleo C. ‘Opioid Receptors and Myocardial Protection: Do some opioid agonists possess cardioprotective effects?’. Clinical Drug Investigation, 1998 15(5) 445-454.
McCormack K. ‘Some new insights into the pharmacology of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs’. In: Novel Aspects of Pain Management: Opioids and Beyond, Sawynok J and Cowan A (Eds), John Wiley & Sons, New York. 1999, pp. 73-94.
McCormack K, Kidd B, Morris V. ‘Assay of topically-administered ibuprofen using a model of post-injury hypersensitivity. A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study’. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 2000 56 459-462.
McCormack K. ‘The roles of Cox-1 and Cox-2’. Journal of Rheumatology 1998 25(11) 2279-2281.
McCormack K. ‘Fail-safe mechanisms that perpetuate neuropathic pain’. PAIN: Clinical Updates. Volume VII No. 3, Fall 1999.
McCormack K. ‘COX-selective analgesics – some concerns’.PAIN: Clinical Updates, 2000.