Industrial Research in the Quest for New Medicines

Abstract

In the search for new medicines there are, in theory, two basic approaches. One is to try to fill a ‘therapeutic gap’; the other is to try to improve the drug therapy of a condition for which the treatment already available is not entirely satisfactory. In reality research programmes in the pharmaceutical industry frequently include both kinds of projects.

This article is based on a paper given by Dr. Berde, Head of Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Sandoz Ltd., on 30 November 1973 at Melbourne, where he was the guest of the Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists. It is reprinted here by kind permission of the Editor of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology, where it was first published.