title: Trends in exploration of therapeutic targets.
abstract: Lead discovery against a preselected therapeutic target is a key component in modern drug development. Continuous effort and increasing interest has been directed at the search for new targets, which has led to the identification of a growing number of them. Data from the therapeutic target database, at http://bidd.nus.edu.sg/group/cjttd/ttd.asp, show that, as of July 2004, the number of documented targets of marketed and investigational drugs has reached 1,174 distinct proteins (including subtypes) and 27 nucleic acids, 239 of which are targets of the marketed drugs. Analysis of these targets, particularly those of recently approved drugs and patented investigational agents, provide useful hints about general trends of target exploration and current focus in drug discovery for the treatment of high impact diseases needing effective or more treatment options.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Science, National University of Singapore, Blk Soc 1, Level 7, 3 Science Drive #2, Singapore 117543. csccyz@nus.edu.sg
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: L Y
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: C W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Yap
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Y Z
authors.initials: YZ
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D016208:Databases, Factual; D017277:Drug Approval / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D023281:Genomics / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D010330:Patents as Topic; D014481:United States; D014486:United States Food and Drug Administration