Discovery and Development of a New Pharmaceutical Drug
Discovery
Typically, researchers discover new drugs through:
- New insights into a disease process that allow researchers to design a product to stop or reverse the effects of the disease.
- Many tests of molecular compounds to find possible beneficial effects against any of a large number of diseases.
- Existing treatments that have unanticipated effects.
- New technologies, such as those that provide new ways to target medical products to specific sites within the body or to manipulate genetic material.
![R & D R & D](https://www.fda.gov/ucm/groups/fdagov-public/documents/image/ucm439143.jpg)
drug research and development
At this stage in the process, thousands of compounds may be potential candidates for development as a medical treatment. After early testing, however, only a small number of compounds look promising and call for further study.
Development
Once researchers identify a promising compound for development, they conduct experiments to gather information on:
- How it is absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and excreted.
- Its potential benefits and mechanisms of action.
- The best dosage.
- The best way to give the drug (such as by mouth or injection).
- Side effects or adverse events that can often be referred to as toxicity.
- How it affects different groups of people (such as by gender, race, or ethnicity) differently.
- How it interacts with other drugs and treatments.
- Its effectiveness as compared with similar drugs.