Traditional drug development targets directly the disease-causing ill-behaving proteins. During the past several years, another direction has rapidly emerged. It is based on the regulation of the cellular processes at the RNA level and is expected to change the standard of care for many diseases.
The resulting treatments are expected to be more cost effective, relatively simple to manufacture, and can target previously undruggable pathways. The respective research, called epitranscriptomics, studies chemical modifications to RNA, and the proteins & enzymes that write, erase, and read these modifications.

The most abundant RNA modification of mammalian mRNAs that also plays a vital role in many diseases is N6-methyladenosine (m6A). We have developed active substances for almost all enzymes involved in the regulation of RNA m6A, and proven them in biological experiments. Our biggest achievement is the discovery of the world's first m6A methylation activators (Selberg S et al. Cell Reports, 2019; 26:3762). www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(19)30286-4.pdf