The development and commercialization of new medical drugs is a complex and costly process and the pharmaceutical industry continues to demand ever more advanced products. The process of drug discovery revolves around identifying one molecule among millions of candidate molecules, followed by synthesis, characterization, screening, and assays for therapeutic efficacy.
The pharmaceutical industry has come a long way from the origins of drug discovery and development, which dates back to the early days of human civilization. Key discoveries of the 1920s and 1930s, such as insulin and penicillin, were mass-manufactured and distributed broadly. The industry picked up in earnest from the 1950s as a result of the development of systematic scientific approaches, an advanced understanding of human biology (including DNA), and sophisticated manufacturing techniques.
The idea that the effect of drugs on the human body is mediated by specific interactions of a drug molecule with biological macromolecules (in most cases proteins or nucleic acids), led scientists to the conclusion that individual chemicals are required for the biological activity of the drug. This made for the beginning of the modern era in pharmacology, as pure chemicals, instead of crude extracts, which are essentially mixtures, became the standard drugs.
Numerous new drugs were developed during the 1950s and mass-produced and marketed through the 1960s, including Valium (diazepam) one the most prescribed drugs in history. Cancer drugs were a feature of the 1970s, followed in the 1980s by drugs for heart disease and AIDS.
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