Abstract: Modern medicines such as anticancer and antiviral drugs have saved numerous lives and drastically improved our life quality. The discovery and development journey of these drugs is a challenging process that involves the compromise of numerous parameters in each drug for an acceptable benefit / risk balance. There is no perfect molecule as a drug, and every drug has various flaws that need to be managed and overcome.
Through the decades, scientists in both the pharmaceutical / biotech industry and academia have tried to develop tools and ways to predict the drug-like properties of drug candidates in order to increase of the likelihood of success in the clinic but most of these attempts have failed. As a result, many large companies have become highly risk-averse in the development of imperfect drug candidates, and this has resulted in the discontinuation of numerous drug development programs. This seminar will discuss some of these challenges and present the case study of a recently approved drug that suffered multiple near-death experiences before the eventual success.