Summary:
Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are under immense pressures to
produce a steady stream of innovative, well-differentiated drugs at reduced
costs. Currently it takes an estimated 7-10 years to develop and market a drug
at a cost that exceeds $800 million. In simple terms, drug discovery requires
the identification of a disease, knowledge of the disease mechanism and
identification of a target (point of intervention). The human genome project is
expected to identify approximately 100,000 targets that will require evaluation
against many compound libraries to compare gene sequences and structure. This
represents a very time-consuming process and a major bottleneck in the drug
discovery process as millions of compounds can be screened for each target.
Novel discovery and validation technologies can expand the hit rate for
promising compounds in the pipeline, and expedite their progress through to
market. The introduction of microarrays and lab-on-a-chip technologies has
already revolutionized the drug discovery process. Where once it took the effort
of a single chemist to view anything from one to 12 gene variations at a time,
microarrays can view thousands in the same time frame. Now, nanotechnology
promises to exponentially increase even the volume of microarrays by working at
a level far smaller than conventional microarrays and according to one source
the pharmaceutical market will represent approximately $180 billion of the
forecasted $1 trillion nanotech industry.
Nanotechnology can enhance the drug discovery process, through
miniaturization, automation, speed and reliability of assays. Although at an
embryonic stage of development, nano-enabled drugs are already bringing clinical
benefits to thousands of patients. This report provides an overview and a
detailed analysis of the major drivers, restraints and challenges for current
and emerging applications of nanotechnology in drug discovery. Areas covered
include nano-enabled drug discovery technologies/tools, nano-enabled drugs and
an assessment of key market engineering parameters. The technologies/tools
covered include, nanoarrays, nanomasspectrometry, nanolithography arrays,
biological chips, congruent force intermolecular test and solubility and
reformulation methods. This report provides global market coverage and discusses
funding, regulatory and ethical issues in the major industrial countries, with
worldwide market forecasts over a 5-year forecast period. This report will be of
vital interest to strategic planners, marketing managers and product development
managers at all pharmaceutical, diagnostic, life science and biotechnology
companies that may be interested in nanotechnology. This report may also benefit
individuals and investors who track advances in the evolving nanotechnology
market, including venture capitalists, healthcare equity analysts, academic
research and scientific staff.
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