Exclusive online articles

Explore the highs and lows of drug development in the articles below, produced to complement the print issue of 'Big Picture on Drug Development'.

The pharma story

When we are ill, we look to manufactured medicines to make us better. We have access to more treatments than at any time in human history.

Nature's medicine
The natural world has been the source of many of our medicines.

Fighting pain
Pain has been the target of medications for centuries, yet it remains difficult to treat.

Making a drug

Developing a new drug is a long process. What are the key stages, and who does what during them? By way of illustration, this fictional case study examines the people and processes involved in drug development.

The age of chance
Drug development is a rational, scientific endeavour. But many drugs have been identified by sheer fluke.

Drug delivery
As well as making a drug, a pharmaceutical company has to turn it into a usable product.

What drugs do

We are used to seeing pharmaceuticals in their blister packs, or medicines in brown bottles. Less common treatments might call for injections or use of a drip in hospital.

But what's in those anonymous pills and fluids? And what do they actually do inside our bodies?

Priming the pipeline
Drug companies are looking to a range of new technologies to boost drug development.

Bioproduction
Are living organisms a suitable way to make new pharmaceuticals?

Drugs of the future
Small-chemical drugs will be the principal pharmaceutical tools for the foreseeable future, though with monoclonal antibodies and proteins making an increasing impact.

Safe and sound

It typically takes more than a decade for a new drug to go from initial research to use in the clinic. During this time, companies have to show that their drug actually does something beneficial and that it is safe.

A watching brief
Once a drug is being used, is that the end of safety testing?

How safe is safe?
What level of risk are we prepared to tolerate with medicines?

Drug rebels
Aspirin works as well today as it did when launched. But drugs used to treat infections (and cancer) lose their potency, because of resistance.

Right to risk it?
Should terminally ill patients have access to experimental medicines?

Placebo effect
Even if given a dummy medicine, some people get better, thanks to the miraculous placebo effect. Could it ever be used deliberately as a form of medicine?

Drugs and people

We talk about 'drugs for high blood pressure' rather than 'drugs for Mrs Smith'. What is given to Mrs Smith is also given to Mr Smith and Mrs Jones. But this one-size-fits-all model is beginning to undergo a radical change.

Smart pills
Pills are supposed to be for the sick. But some are being used by perfectly healthy people. Are we heading for a future of 'cosmetic pharmacology'?

Prevention: still better than cure?
Drugs can prevent disease as well as cure it. Should we be loading up on pharmaceuticals to stay healthy?

A cure for all ills?
Are we looking for simple answers to complex questions in the shape of a pill?

Your money or your life

The pharmaceutical industry is enormously profitable. The industry employs people, contributes to the economy and national wealth, and invests in the next generation of medicines. But does it have too much power and influence? Is it too interested in its own ends?

Alternatives to drugs
Is a drug the only way to treat an illness?