Successes in drug discovery and design

The Society for Medicines Research (SMR) held a one-day meeting on case histories in drug discovery on December 4, 2003, at the National Heart and Lung Institute in London. These meetings have been organized by the SMR biannually for many years, and this latest meeting proved extremely popular, attracting a capacity audience of more than 130 registrants. The purpose of these meetings is educational; they allow those interested in drug discovery to hear key learnings from recent successful drug discovery programs. There was no overall linking theme between the talks, other than each success story has led to the introduction of a new and improved product of therapeutic use. The drug discovery stories covered in the meeting were extremely varied and, put together, they emphasized that each successful story is unique and special. This meeting is also special for the SMR because it presents the "SMR Award for Drug Discovery" in recognition of outstanding achievement and contribution in the area. It should be remembered that drug discovery is an extremely risky business and an extremely costly and complicated process in which the success rate is, at best, low.