Ex Vivo Drug Evaluation Using Human Ocular Cells: A Contribution to Drug Discovery

Abstract

The field of therapeutics is fundamentally and heavily dependent on drug discovery. The record number of new agents being developed probably conceals how ardent the task is [1]. Drug discovery is indeed a long, costly, and high-risk process that takes over 10-15 years with an average cost of over $1-2 billion for a new drug to be approved for clinical use [2]. What is astonishing is the failure rate of candidate drugs. By most accounts over 90% of drug candidates fail to be approved for clinical use. Lack of clinical efficacy and poor drug-like properties along with unmanageable toxicity are among the frequent reasons for their failure. The transition between basic and clinical science, known colloquially and the “valley of death”, is where most promising discoveries meet their demise [3]. Multiple efforts have been made to overcome this difficult situation that adversely affects modern therapeutics [2].