Proteomics accelerating the identification of the target molecule of bioactive small molecules

Failures in many drug development programs in the past decades were related to unspecified mechanism of action and poor pharmacokinetic (PK) properties. Recent developments are focused on well defined targets, improved PK profiles, however, not much is known about off-target effects, especially those responsible for diminishing drug activity. Steadily increasing application of proteomics in drug development should expose clinically relevant proteins for the analysis of drug effects, to show what group of patients will respond and who should not be treated with an agent.