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Systems drug discovery: a quantitative, objective approach for safer drug development
Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery
|July 26, 2012
Summary
Pharmaceutical companies are shifting to open innovation due to stagnant drug discovery success. A new Systems Drug Discovery approach uses imaging and metabolomics to objectively assess drug impacts on tissues, aiming to reduce clinical trial failures.
Area of Science:
- Biotechnology
- Pharmacology
- Systems Biology
Background:
- The pharmaceutical industry faces declining R&D efficiency, with stable new drug approvals despite significant investment over 30 years.
- A paradigm shift towards open innovation and academic partnerships is emerging as a response to these challenges.
Discussion:
- Traditional drug discovery strategies have yielded diminishing returns.
- A novel, holistic approach termed Systems Drug Discovery is proposed.
- This method leverages high-content imaging and metabolomics for quantitative physiological state assessment of organ slice cultures.
Key Insights:
- Quantitative characterization of healthy, diseased, and drug-treated tissues defines a multiparametric health space.
- Objective assessment of candidate drug impact on cellular physiology is enabled.
- This approach aims to improve the accuracy of drug development and reduce late-stage failures.
Outlook:
- Systems Drug Discovery offers a data-driven strategy to enhance drug development pipelines.
- The quantitative framework is expected to guide the selection of more effective drug candidates.
- Reducing failure rates in clinical phases is a primary objective for future pharmaceutical research.
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