Managing the Drug Discovery Process: How to Make It More Efficient and Cost-Effective

Managing the Drug Discovery Process: How to Make It More Efficient and Cost-Effective thoroughly examines the current state of pharmaceutical research and development by providing chemistry-based perspectives on biomedical research, drug hunting and innovation. The book also considers the interplay of stakeholders, consumers, and the drug firm with attendant factors, including those that are technical, legal, economic, demographic, political, social, ecological, and infrastructural. Since drug research can be a high-risk, high-payoff industry, it is important to researchers to effectively and strategically manage the drug discovery process.

This book takes a closer look at increasing pre-approval costs for new drugs and examines not only why these increases occur, but also how they can be overcome to ensure a robust pharmacoeconomic future.  Written in an engaging manner and including memorable insights, this book is aimed at redirecting the drug discovery process to make it more efficient and cost-effective in order to achieve the goal of saving countless more lives through science. A valuable and compelling resource, this is a must-read for all students and researchers in academia and the pharmaceutical industry.

Considers drug discovery in multiple R&D venues, including big pharma, large biotech, start-up ventures, academia, and nonprofit research institutesAnalyzes the organization of pharmaceutical R&D, taking into account human resources considerations like recruitment and configuration, management of discovery and development processes, and the coordination of internal research within, and beyond, the organization, including outsourced workPresents a consistent, well-connected, and logical dialogue that readers will find both comprehensive and approachable

Section A: Introduction and Overview

1: Backgrounder: Medicinal chemistry: Research, discovery, art, science

Section B: Preprofessional Education

2: Introduction: Preprofessional education

3: Two-year certification and degree programs

4: Four-year undergraduate degree programs

5: The big decision

Section C: Graduate and Professional Education

6: Graduate and postgraduate education at a crossroads

7: Master’s degree programs

8: Doctoral and professional programs

9: The big leap

Section D: Research and Discovery

10: Drug discovery: Chaos can be your friend or your enemy

11: Drug discovery: Standing on the shoulders of giants

12: Research and discovery: The difficult we do immediately—The impossible takes only a little longer

Section E: Chemical Development, Quality Requirements, and Regulatory Affairs

13: Turning a potent agent into a registered product

14: Chemical development: Synthetic studies and engineering aspects

15: Chemical development: Analytical studies

16: FDA path and process: Sponsor‘s regulatory tasks for drug approval

Section F: Pharmaceutical Research and Development: Concluding Remarks

17: Epilogue