The quirks that make drug development so hard

People outside the pharma industry rarely realize how difficult a task the drug discovery process is. But perhaps, even among scientists, there is a significant lack of knowledge of the complexities of the drug development process. Part of the reason is that this process happens behind the closed walls of pharma and is rarely published, but it’s also not the sexy part of bringing a therapeutic to market.

Derek Lowe’s post on a patent dispute between Novartis and the Government of India speaks to this complexity (in this case polymorphs). The comments are very interesting too as he asks for examples of drugs where getting a particular polymorph was essential to getting proper efficacy. The whole process of bringing a drug to life involves everything from biology, chemistry, toxicology, materials science, chemical engineering, and a healthy dose of luck. I hope some day people will realize that in many ways, developing a drug, especially in light of our patent system, is harder than pretty much most other problems.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Is Pharma a Victim of Its Own Hype? (meganmcardle.theatlantic.com)
• Assessing India’s Innovation Climate (biotechblog.com)