make the right choices in drug discovery ...Together we can develop your next biological model.
Making the right choices in drug discovery is the foundation of any successful drug development process. Evidently, “wrong” decisions may lead, in the worst-case scenario, to the stop of the research project in any given stage, usually accompanied by severe economic impacts. The decline in research and development productivity within the pharmaceutical industry during the course of the past decade has led to a shift in paradigm in drug discovery in general. The thought of “fail early to fail cheap” has been proclaimed in an effort to reduce and shift attrition to earlier phases and to increase the efficacy and safety of drugs. All of which should boost the success rates of new therapeutic compounds in the clinical phases (1).
The five-dimensional framework
Based on these findings, AstraZeneca has decided to revise their R&D drug discovery strategy in 2012. This “5R - five-dimensional framework” was summarized in a much acclaimed article, which stresses the importance of choosing the right target, tissue, safety, patient and commercial potential (2). In applying this strategy AstraZeneca has managed to increase the successful completion of projects from candidate drug nomination to phase III from 4% in 2005–2010 to 19% in 2012–2016. Making the right choices in drug discovery by considering the right target, tissue, safety and patient correlates to a very large degree on which biological model system is used for the desired disease setting. Hence, the development of in vitro and in vivo model systems that best reflects the biology of the given disease, has become key during target validation, lead optimization and preclinical phases.