Antihypertensive drug development: current challenges and future opportunities

The growing rate of obesity and diabetes, and an aging population has led to increased demand for new antihypertensive compounds. This review highlights the challenges and opportunities associated with each phase of drug discovery and development of novel antihypertensive agents. Discovery and development starts with identification of a protein hypothesized to be linked to hypertension. Using the information gathered during this early stage, several potential candidates are often synthesized and moved on through preclinical evaluations, eventually leading to selection of one or more compounds for testing in humans. The compounds then enter preclinical safety studies in laboratory animal species and subsequently are tested in tiered clinical studies. As the compounds enter clinical testing, there is an exponential increase in the investment of resources to demonstrate that a new compound is a viable and worthy therapeutic agent for hypertension. The review provides some forecasting of issues that are likely to impact drug development of novel antihypertensives in the future.