Genomics research and cultivating serendipity in pharmaceutical drug discovery : assessing the competitiveness of R&D productivity between the West and Asia

It has been widely reported that pharmaceutical drug discovery innovation began its major decline somewhere in the last decade of the 20th century. After reaching a historical high of 53 new molecular entities (NMEs) in 1996, the industry has since witnessed a steady decline of NME filings (down to 18 in 2006) with the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER)---despite rapidly escalating R&D spending among the world's major pharmaceutical firms (the "majors"). Industry leaders, researchers, and observers have all but acknowledged this drug discovery productivity crisis, much of it attributed to the industry's preference for and eventual exhaustion of simple, single molecular targets-the so-called "low-hanging fruit" whose discovery is characteristically attributed to serendipity. Collectively, pharmacological compounds were identified that targeted the products of -400-500 genes in the human body over the past five decades. These single-molecular targets-the majority of which are mechanistically overrepresented by the G-protein coupled receptors and key enzymes--are now believed to have been mostly discovered and commercialized into the ubiquitous blockbuster drugs on the market, ranging from statins to proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs).

Department dc:contributor.department

Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Lu, Trent Yen-wei

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Frank L. Douglas and Anthony J. Sinskey.

• Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/39573

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/39573