Original | New Long March for Small Molecule Drugs

The status of small molecule drugs in new drugs is becoming humble, and the proportion of small molecule drugs in the main profit products of major companies is getting lower and lower.

Drug source analysis

The discovery of new drugs is not difficult in theory.

Therefore, the discovery of new drugs has several dimensions more than the uncertainty of quantum mechanics.

For example, the activity is related to the structure of the binding cavity, the concentration of endogenous ligands, the binding force to the target, and the expression level of the target itself.

Selectivity is the weakness of small molecules and the biggest disadvantage of competing with biological drugs.

In order to break the situation, the pharmaceutical industry has recently begun to try different strategies, protein degradation can solve many of the above problems at the same time.

In the past few decades, the pharmaceutical industry has accumulated a lot of excellent leads, but either because the target is unclear, or because of insufficient selectivity, they fell before the finish line.