Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • From the Analyst's Couch
  • Published:

Value of novelty?

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 1, pages 571–572 (2002)Cite this article

Focusing on novel targets

Over the past decade, there has been an increasing focus among many pharmaceutical companies to discover 'first-in-class' novel drugs. Drivers for this strategy include the past success of drugs such as Prozac (for depression), high expectations from financial markets for new blockbuster drugs and an increasing concern that managed care would limit opportunities for 'me-too' molecules. As demand for new drugs has continued, tremendous advances in technology, especially 'high-throughput' technologies, such as genomics, have led many scientists and top pharmaceutical executives to believe that there will soon be a revolutionary improvement in the industry's ability to identify and pursue novel targets. As a result, pharmaceutical companies have migrated much of their R&D investment towards novel targets, beginning in the early 1990s. According to recent research, most pharmaceutical companies devote ∼60–70% of their drug discovery portfolios towards novel targets2. Today, given that pharmaceutical companies have been working on many novel targets for nearly a decade, the time is right to ask: how much value do novel drugs really create?

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Share of GPCR-based targets for drugs on the market.
Figure 2: Value and survival rate of precedented compared with novel approaches.

References

  1. Drews, J. Drug discovery: a historical perspective. Science 287, 1960–1964 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Fruits of Genomics (Lehman Brothers, New York, 2001).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Products Practice, McKinsey & Company, 3075A Hansen Way, Palo Alto, 94304, California, USA

    Philip Ma

  2. the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Products Practice, McKinsey & Company, 55 East 52nd Street 21st Floor, New York, 10022, New York, USA

    Rodney Zemmel

Authors
  1. Philip Ma
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rodney Zemmel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Related links

Related links

DATABASES

LocusLink

adrenoceptors

angiotensin receptors

dopamine receptors

gonadotrophin-releasing-hormone receptors

histamine receptors

5-HT receptors

muscarinic acetylcholine receptors

PGE1 receptors

Medscape DrugInfo

Allegra

Atrovent

BuSpar

Claritin

Coreg

Cozaar

Cytotec

Imitrex

Pepcid

Plavix

Prozac

Requip

Risperdal

Serevent

Singulair

Toprol-XL

Zantac

Zoladex

Zyprexa

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ma, P., Zemmel, R. Value of novelty?. Nat Rev Drug Discov 1, 571–572 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd884

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd884

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing