Drug Discovery and Development

No single method exists for discovering a new drug. Each process of drug invention, and each research team, has its own way of working and a different number of molecules to test, depending on its methods and aims. Researchers can also build on “previous empirical discoveries” (in the case of Felix Hoffmann’s synthesis of aspirin, for example), on “chance observations” (in the case of penicillin, for example), and on “clinical observations” (in the case of the first psychotropic drug, for example). Innovation is the result of diverse processes. In order to understand the genesis and development of a drug, it is therefore necessary to assess the innovation process as a whole, from the conditions for identifying and evaluating molecules to the development of drugs through ...