drug discovery

In medicine, biotechnology and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which medicationdrugs are discovered and/or designed.In the past most drugs have been discovered either by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or by serendipityserendipitous discovery. A new approach has been to understand how disease and infection are controlled at the molecular biologymolecular and physiologicalphysiology level and to target specific entities based on this knowledge.The process of drug discovery involves the identification of candidates, synthesis, characterization, screening, assays, clinical trialclinical trials, formulation, regulatory requirements and finally bulk manufacture. (See Medicinal chemistry) Despite advances in technology and understanding of biological systems, drug discovery is still a long process with low rate of new therapeutic discovery.Information on the human genome, its sequence and what it encodes has been hailed as a potential windfall for drug discovery, promising to virtually eliminate the bottleneck in therapeutic targets that has been one limiting factor on the rate of therapeutic discovery.refgenomicwindfall However, data indicates that "new targets" as opposed to "established targets" are more prone to drug discovery project failure in general.refphasesuccessrates This data corroborates some thinking underlying a pharmaceutical industry trend beginning at the turn of the twenty-first century and continuing today which finds more risk aversion in target selection among multi-national pharmaceutical companies.reftargetriskaversion

Targets: New and Established - The defnition of "target" itself is something debated both within and between pharmaceutical companies. However, the distinction between a "new" and "established" target can be made without a full understanding of just what a "target" is. The distinction between "new" and "established" is typically made by pharmaceutical companies engaged in discovery and development of small molecule therapeutics."Established targets" are those for which there is a good public understanding, supported by a lengthy publication history, of both how the target functions in normal physiology and how it is involved in human pathology. This does not imply that the mechanism of action of drugs that are thought to act through a particular established targets is fully understood. Rather, "established" relates directly to the amount of background information available on a target, in particular functional information. The more such information is available, the less investment is (generally) required to develop a therapeutic directed against the target. The process of gathering such functional information is called "target validation" in pharmaceutical industry parlance. Established targets also include those that the pharmaceutical industry has had experience mounting drug discovery campaigns against in the past; such a history provides information on the chemical feasibility of developing a small molecular therapeutic against the target and can provide licensing opportunities and freedom-to-operate indicators with respect to small molecule therapeutic candidates.In general, "new targets" are all those targets that are not "established targets" but which have been or are the subject of drug discovery campaigns.

See also -

Protein structure prediction

Drug design

Rational drug design

Bioinformatics

Cheminformatics

Biomedical informatics

Orphan drug

Physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modelling

External links -

chemlin.de - WWW-Information resources: Drug Discovery

ich.org - ICH Website

fda.gov - FDA Website

q-pharm.com - Drug Discovery Software

Notes and references - # notegenomicwindfall ''this requires substantiation with one or more reputable sources from the time of enthusiasm following "completion" of the human genome sequence''# notephasesuccessrates Trend Watch: Success Rate by Discovery Phase, New and Established Target Projects date=October, 2005 org=Drug Discovery & Development url=http:// # notetargetriskaversion Personal communication. ''this requires substantiation with one or more reputable sources reporting on industry trends in !2003–2005''Category:Clin ical? researchCategory:Medicinal !chemistryCategory:Pharmaceutic al? !industryCategory:PharmacologyI ndustry-stub? de:Pharmaforschung

Nature
Nature, International weekly journal of science.
http://www.nature.com/

American Chemical Society Publications
Publishes products and services for the practice and advancement of the chemical sciences.
http://pubs.acs.org/

Drug Discovery Online
Informative synopsis of news, product updates, discussion forums, & online chat regarding manufacturing, technology, equipment, & supplies for professionals in the Drug Discovery & Development Industry.
http://www.drugdiscoveryonline.com

IBC's Drug Discovery Technology 2002
Drug discovery techniques. August 4-9, 2002 in Boston, MA, USA.
http://www.drugdisc.com/