[New tools for preclinical pharmaceutic research]

Despite constantly growing expenditures for pharmaceutical research, which have double in the last ten years, the number of new drugs marketed in the world has continued to decline. The last decade has nevertheless seen a series of major methodological advances in the fields including pharmacogenomics, pharamcogenetics, high-flow screening, and structural biology, all considered to contribute to the discovery of "drugs of the future". Systemic screening of compound banks has become the starting point for nearly all drug research. It is nevertheless only the first step towards a drug (typically lasting a few months compared with ten years before the final drug is marketed). For a compound to passé from a leading screening compound to a marketed drug, its often contradictory properties (solubility, permeability, duration of action, activity, selectivity, absence of toxicity) must undergo a long multidimensional optimization process. The development of easily interpreted low-cost in vitro tests allow prediction of these properties without animal experimentation, greatly facilitating the multidisciplinary process.