Drug Development
Drug development is a risky business. More than half of candidate drugs that look promising in the research lab will ultimately fail. More than a quarter of drugs that reach the clinical trial stage will be rejected as ineffective. However, the wealth of genomic information now available through public databases - in particular, the rapidly growing number of known associations between diseases and specific genes - may significantly improve the drug-development success rate. At least, success rates will improve if drug developers let genomics guide their choice of molecular targets for research, according to a team of pharmaceutical industry and academic scientists.
Credit: Ernesto del Aguila III, NHGRI.
Drug Development
Drug development is a risky business. More than half of candidate drugs that look promising in the research lab will ultimately fail. More than a quarter of drugs that reach the clinical trial stage will be rejected as ineffective. However, the wealth of genomic information now available through public databases - in particular, the rapidly growing number of known associations between diseases and specific genes - may significantly improve the drug-development success rate. At least, success rates will improve if drug developers let genomics guide their choice of molecular targets for research, according to a team of pharmaceutical industry and academic scientists.
Credit: Ernesto del Aguila III, NHGRI.