Choose your modality

Many chemists are excited about the capabilities they can bring to bear with new drug modalities. But the profusion of new types of molecules also raises a tough question for early-stage drug discovery: Which modality would be the most effective way to drug a target of interest? Experts say there’s no field-wide framework for making that decision. It involves weighing what you know about a drug target, what you need from a medicine, the strengths and weaknesses of each modality, and the expertise of the drug discovery team. Chemists and chemical biologists just keep dreaming up new ways to interfere with biomolecules. That research frequently leads to promising potential medicines, and there are more and more flavors of molecules at some stage of clinical or preclinical investigation. How do drug hunters choose between them? Twenty years ago, monoclonal antibodies were just emerging as a promising type of therapy on the