Drug discovery: selecting the optimal approach

The target-based drug discovery approach has for the past 10–15 years been the dominating drug discovery paradigm. However, within the past few years, the commercial value of novel targets in licensing deals has fallen dramatically, reflecting that the probability of reaching a clinical drug candidate for a novel target is very low. This has naturally led to questions regarding the success of target-based drug discovery and, more importantly, a search for alternatives. This paper evaluates the strengths and limitations of the main drug discovery approaches, and proposes a novel approach that could offer advantages for the identification of disease-modifying treatments.