The state of the art of the science of drug discovery—an opinion

Abstract

AbstractThe discovery of drugs (and their subsequent development) is a difficult subspeciality in pharmacology that, in conjunction with clinical medicine, generates the vitality underlying the entire pharmacologic‐therapeutic enterprise. The drug discovery process is unique among biomedical sciences in that it takes place almost solely in industrial research institutions rather than in nonindustrial institutions—i.e., academic and government laboratories. The conventional view of drug discovery is that, since it is mission‐oriented and pharmacological, it is derivative on the basic pharmacological research carried out in nonindustrial research institutions. It is argued by the author that this model is oversimplistic and is not applicable to pharmaceutical research: It is very frequently the case that drugs are developed first and thus precede “basic” knowledge and in fact are the source of new academic findings, especially in pharmacology. In addition, new drugs are useful tools in physiology and biochemistry. Thus, the discovery of an innovative drug is per se a basic contribution. A more reasonable model of the relationship between drug discovery (and development) and nonindustrial research—physiological, biochemical, and pharmacological—is that of symbiosis with each segment nurturing the other to mutual benefit.The problems of pharmacologists involved in drug development are more complex than those of nonindustrial pharmacologists in that the end points of their work—successful clinical trial and marketing—demand more than an interesting pharmacological action; the action must be of therapeutic significance and be resident in a molecule which has been determined to be nontoxic, bioavailable, patentable, and commercially viable. The differences in goals between academic (non‐mission‐oriented) and industrial (mission‐oriented) pharmacological research and the consequent demands in the latter for specified kinds of results often leads to differing patterns of research and research judgments that can be a source of misunderstandings and confusion between industrial and nonindustrial pharmacologists.