Drug Discovery and Natural Products: End of an Era or an Endless Frontier?

Toward Drug Development

The vast majority of pharmaceuticals on the market are based on natural product molecules originally derived from living organisms. When it comes to newly approved drugs, however, the situation looks rather different. Difficulties with high-throughput screening and laboratory synthesis of natural products have led drug companies to focus on libraries of synthetic compounds, despite their providing a much lower “hit rate.” Li and Vederas (p. 161 ) review methodologies that facilitate the screening, analysis, and synthesis of natural product molecules and their derivatives. Given these advances and the vast numbers of organisms and environments that remain to be explored for potential drug candidates, the current lull in newly approved drugs based on natural products will likely be temporary.