Drug Discovery and Development

Drug discovery is a process which aims at identifying a compound therapeutically useful in curing and treating disease. This process involves the identification of candidates, synthesis, characterization, validation, optimization, screening and assays for therapeutic efficacy. A compound will start the drug development process before clinical trials if it proved its value in these studies. To produce a medication that is safe, effective, and satisfies all regulatory requirements, the new drug development process must go through multiple stages. Our article’s primary focus is that the process is complex, lengthy, and costly enough that every new drug finally approved for clinical use must take into account a large number of biological targets, and new research instruments may be required to examine each new target. It’s a difficult and drawn-out process from initial discovery to a medicine that can be sold. From the time of discovery to the approved drugs, it takes 12 to 15 years and costs roughly $1 billion USD. On an average, a million molecules screened but only a single is explored in late stage clinical trials and is finally made obtainable for patients. This article provides a brief outline of the processes of new drug discovery and development.