Importance Of Preclinical Imaging In Drug Discovery

The process of discovering and bringing a drug to market consists of several stages, beginning with identification and validation of a drug target and continuing through lead identification by high-throughput screening, lead optimization, and profiling in relevant disease models. When a promising compound is found, a decision must be made on whether to take the drug into development. This long and expensive undertaking typically requires nearly $800 million and takes about 12 years before an approved drug is brought to market  .

Shortening the drug discovery and development process is critical to managing this cost and can be achieved by improving the characterization of compounds and their effects in early phases of testing. Imaging has the potential to dramatically increase the efficiency of lead candidate selection by providing earlier and more highly predictive data, compared with traditional methods. Imaging is also well suited to facilitating translation between preclinical testing and clinical evaluation of drugs. Imaging methods are also more easily applied than traditional methods in the newer, more realistic models of human disease that are becoming increasingly prevalent, such as models of invasive disease in the tissue of origin as well as transgenic mouse models.