title: Toxins and drug discovery.
abstract: Components from venoms have stimulated many drug discovery projects, with some notable successes. These are briefly reviewed, from captopril to ziconotide. However, there have been many more disappointments on the road from toxin discovery to approval of a new medicine. Drug discovery and development is an inherently risky business, and the main causes of failure during development programmes are outlined in order to highlight steps that might be taken to increase the chances of success with toxin-based drug discovery. These include having a clear focus on unmet therapeutic needs, concentrating on targets that are well-validated in terms of their relevance to the disease in question, making use of phenotypic screening rather than molecular-based assays, and working with development partners with the resources required for the long and expensive development process.
authors.affiliation: Research and Innovation Support, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland; Strathclyde Institute for Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0RE, UK. Electronic address: alan.harvey@dcu.ie.
authors.forename: Alan L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Harvey
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends*; D014118:Toxins, Biological / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use
chemical_list: D014118:Toxins, Biological
keywords: Conus venoms; Drug development; Drug discovery; Phenotypic screening; Snake venoms; Venoms to drugs