RSC-SCI--tenth medicinal chemistry symposium. 5-8 September 1999, Churchill College, Cambridge, UK

This meeting was part of a biennial series focusing upon topics at the forefront of medicinal chemistry. There was no single therapeutic focus for the meeting, but the 24 lectures were spread between various themes: enzyme inhibitors; drug-receptor/ion channel interactions; enabling technologies; and, new topics in drug research. Several of the lectures featured structure-activity relationships of new drugs, outlining the rationale for the selection of drug candidates. It was clear that many pharmaceutical companies now routinely employ in vivo studies of distribution and pharmacokinetics early in the drug discovery process, thereby adding to the traditional criteria of affinity, selectivity and in vivo effect when potential drugs are selected for development. Likelihood of success during later clinical investigation phases is thereby enhanced.