Complexity and Building Block Search: A Historical Account of Drug Discovery

Abstract

The history of the pharmaceutical industry shows that innovators have searched for new drugs by building upon known, active substances, or what are called “chemical building blocks.” The essence of this search is to test variations of the known chemical building blocks for some desired properties and to select the most effective variant from a collection of related variants. This collection is called a library, which guides and delimits future search. My study suggests that by managing libraries with proper design rules, innovators can sustain their R&D activities with modest risk. This sustainability is proposed as an important component of dynamic capabilities.