Systems and integrative biology as alternative guises for pharmacology: Prime time for an iPharm concept?

An alternate viewpoint is that unfettered access to such technologies, where exclusion rather than integration has been the hallmark, has markedly reduced the intellectual competent of the biomedical research endeavor, with perceived technological 'quick fixes' displacing the integrative, hierarchical approach of pharmacology, that with medicinal chemistry, represents the core of the drug discovery process. After two decades of profound neglect, pharmacology has re-emerged as the key discipline in providing context to the drug discovery process, facilitating more timely, context-relevant and data-driven outcomes in the search for new drugs. Rather than viewing the future of drug discovery in terms of the 'new' biologies, systems and integrative, a rubric along the lines of iPharm, integrating both established and new technologies, is required.