Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Commentary
  • Published:

Can pharmacogenomics make a difference in drug development?

Nature Biotechnology volume 17, page 731 (1999)Cite this article

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

Pharmacogenomics is expected to improve the efficiency of discovering and developing new drugs. To date, however, the benefits of genomics have been restricted to drug discovery. Genetic maps, expression arrays, and molecular methods for studying gene function and expression are now used routinely to find new therapeutic targets, identify lead compounds, and demonstrate pharmacological effects. The question is whether pharmacogenomics can also make a difference in drug development.

There are important differences between drug discovery and drug development. Discovery is an expansive process involving research into the mechanisms of disease, the selection of biological targets, and the identification of compounds that modulate the disease. Development is focused on establishing the efficacy and safety of a single compound through phased clinical trials to achieve marketing approval. Drug development is constrained by the high cost of clinical investigation and fact that each day required to achieve marketing approval can reduce the economic value of a product by many millions of dollars.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. president and chief scientific officer of Variagenics, Cambridge, MA

    Fred D. Ledley

Authors
  1. Fred D. Ledley
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ledley, F. Can pharmacogenomics make a difference in drug development?. Nat Biotechnol 17, 731 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/11614

Download citation

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/11614

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing