Drug Discovery and Development

The conceptual process of drug discovery is one that is often the result of an identified need in a defined disease area. This need represents a mandate from the marketing department of a phar- maceutical company or a breakthrough at the research level that has agreed applicability in response to a valid therapeutic demand. Although the intelligent design and development of new thera- peutic entities as evidenced by Sir James Blacks H -receptor an- 2 tagonist cimetidine (Tagamet) is intellectually satisfying many novel drugs arise from serendipity from the chance observation of the research scientist or the clinician that a compound has unex- pected actions of use for the treatment of human disease states. Drugs that have been identified by this route include the antipsy- chotic chlorpromazine and the putative anxiolytic buspirone. The events surrounding the process of drug discovery and de- velopment are the theme of the present volume which attempts to present in a logical and lucid manner the complexity of a process that is often naively assumed to represent nothing more than the identification of a new compound and its rapid introduction into humans free of such complications as efficacy selectivity safety bioavailability toxicity and need.