Drug development in the 21st century

Drug development has evolved from workbench chemical synthesis to an automated and in some cases virtual process in which massive numbers of structures can be simulated, synthesized, evaluated and, in most cases, discarded. Ultimately, all effective compounds must be tried in animal models and subsequently in man and these two stages remain the bottleneck in drug development. Future advances will further reduce the use of animals and optimize clinical trials to increase compound throughput, shorten the time between chemical synthesis and marketing and lead to the early identification of ineffective compounds.