title: New directions in the design and evaluation of anti-cancer drugs.
abstract: The process of anti-cancer drug development undergoes continual change, responding to a variety of scientific and economic pressures. Institutional changes have resulted from the very success of drugs such as doxorubicin, which by their clinical success have greatly expanded the market and altered the economics of cancer chemotherapy, leading to a much greater involvement by the commercial pharmaceutical companies in basic drug design. Scientific changes have been driven by improved cell and molecular biological techniques, which have suggested new targets for therapy and have provided a much wider variety of laboratory biological test systems against which to evaluate new compounds. This review attempts to classify drugs in terms of the level of tumour cell selectivity (sub-cellular, cell kinetics, supra-cellular) which they possess. Seen from this perspective, the recent trend towards the development of non-myelosuppressive agents is more clearly defined as a move towards seeking selectivity at the sub- or supra-cellular levels, rather than at the traditional level of cell kinetics.
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research Laboratory, University of Auckland School of Medicine, New Zealand.
authors.forename: W A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Denny
mesh_terms: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D015195:Drug Design
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents