Current Needs for New Therapeutic Agents and Discovery Strategies—A Systems Pharmacology Approach

In this chapter, we will provide a brief overview of some current therapeutic agents, including their weaknesses, and highlight selected opportunities for continued drug discovery efforts in certain disease areas. We will then focus our attention on different strategies used to identify new therapeutic agents, comparing target-based discovery (TBD) and what we refer to as systems-based discovery (SBD). Although pharmaceutical companies have favored TBD during the past thirty years, emerging evidence indicates that SBD may help in solving some of the issues that have plagued the modern approach to drug discovery. Finally, we will explore the challenges associated with the application of SBD to neurological disorders. This chapter is intended neither to be exhaustive or fair and balanced but presents a selective viewpoint.

Keywords: neurological disorder; target-based discovery; systems-based discovery; therapeutics; iterative modification