Fifteen years ago, an analysis of drug molecules moving through the stages of clinical development suggested that increased three-dimensional character was a marker of greater success. Now, we perform a similar analysis to evaluate the impact of that landmark publication and to see if the trends observed then still hold today.
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Acknowledgements
B. Cockerton from Astex is acknowledged for calculation of properties. B. Baillif from Astex is acknowledged for help with producing the graphs and with statistical analyses. The authors also wish to acknowledge Clarivate and the Cortellis Drug Discovery Intelligence database, which was used to create the data for the analysis, as well as the help of the Clarivate team in confirming the search strategies employed.
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Churcher, I., Newbold, S. & Murray, C.W. Return to Flatland. Nat Rev Chem 9, 140–141 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-025-00688-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-025-00688-5
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