Concluding Thoughts

Abstract

During the twentieth century, advances in drug therapy came fast and furious, resulting in the cure of many previously fatal diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, and testicular cancer. Treatments for more chronic diseases (e.g., asthma, heart failure, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus) have improved the duration and quality of life for untold numbers of patients. These new therapies arose from basic research discoveries followed by the application of the scientific disciplines of drug discovery and development. In recent years, the cost and time required to bring a new drug to market has escalated dramatically, resulting in the contraction of the biopharmaceutical sector—particularly in the basic research component of the industry. This raises the question of where our next generation of drugs will originate. Academicians are well positioned to fill this gap in the discovery pipeline. Free from the pressures of generating a short-term financial return on investment, we can focus on drug development projects that address the greatest unmet clinical need. Once projects are appropriately “de-risked,” they can be licensed to existing biopharmaceutical or start-up companies for further development. If we agree that academia has a social responsibility to ensure that new drugs reach patients in need, we must be willing to devote more financial and human resources to this applied science endeavor. We will need to develop the facilities and expert staff/faculty in such disciplines as assay development; high-throughput screening; medicinal chemistry; pharmacokinetics and ADME; toxicology; and regulatory science. We believe that if we in academia fail to take on this expanded role, we may be depriving future generations of novel therapies that will save lives, improve health, and lower the escalating costs of health care.