Challenges in Drug discovery: Can
We Improve Drug Development |
| Balakrishnan Arun |
Vice President, External Liason, Screening and Natural Products.
Piramal Life Sciences Limited, 1 Nirlon Complex, Goregaon (East), Mumbai 400063, India |
| *Corresponding author: |
Dr. Balakrishnan Arun,
Vice President, External
Liason,
Screening and Natural Products. Piramal Life Sciences Limited,
1
Nirlon Complex, Goregaon (East), Mumbai 400063,India,
Tel: +91 22
30818401,
Fax: +91 22 30818411,
E-mail: arun.balakrishnan@piramal.com |
|
| Received November 23, 2009; Accepted December 22, 2009; Published December 22, 2009 |
Citation: Arun B (2009) Challenges in Drug discovery: Can We Improve Drug Development. J Bioanal Biomed 1: 050-053 doi:10.4172/1948-593X.1000011 |
Copyright: © 2009 Arun B. This is an open-access article distributed
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original author and source are credited. |
Technology drivers in drug discovery
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| Scientific advancements in healthcare are driven by innovations
in different areas like, understanding the pathogenesis of
a disease, development of technologies for diagnosis, and treatment
of the disease. The advent of molecular pathogenesis has
helped us to understand the complex mechanisms that are involved
in a specific disease. This change has heralded several
novel discoveries in the area of biological sciences and
healthcare. Bryan et al., (2009); Hart et al., (2009); Matta et
al., (2009). |
However, several challenges are unmet and there is always a
need to compensate our resources in fighting to solve issues at
a basic science level and also for the development of new drugs
and new approaches for treatment. This challenge will continue
and despite trying to better ourselves with knowledge,
we appear to be far behind in conquering many diseases. There
is always a quest for new knowledge that is available today for
any specific medical condition. There are several unknowns in
this pursuit, thus finding a novel drug for a disease is always a
challenge. Following the path from discovery of a molecule
through the road of development is complex and involves time,
money and multiple disciplines to move it ahead. |
Despite efforts to hasten the process of drug development
using innovative technologies, the current efforts still appear
to be ineffective. Several novel strategies like academia-industry
interactions that foster a conversion of novel technologies to
product and public – private funding etc have not helped to
conquer several diseases. In fact, it appears that the efficiency
has slipped. Therefore, it becomes important to identify the
areas in the development chain that needs to be improved or
methods by which one can hasten the process. |
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