The future of veterinary therapeutics: a glimpse towards 2030

The purpose of this article is to make an educated guess as to what veterinary pharmacology will look like in two decades. By examining the past, it is evident that change is incremental unless a transforming discovery occurs. In the last few decades, such events have dramatically changed medicine and pharmacology, however they have not percolated through the system to the effect that novel drugs have replaced our traditional armamentarium. The effect of six transforming technologies (continued advances in computer technology, microfluidics, nanotechnology, high-throughput screening, control and targeted drug delivery, pharmacogenomics) on veterinary therapeutics is examined. These should lead toward more efficacious and safer drugs across most therapeutic classes due to both increases in our knowledge base as well as more efficient drug development. Shorter term improvements in drug delivery should be seen. Although this growth in technology would portend major advances over the next few decades, economic and regulatory constraints must still be overcome for these new drugs or therapeutic approaches to become common practice.