In eight editions, Kalorama Information's report, Outsourcing in Drug Discovery, has kept the industry informed, providing answers to these questions and more. The 8th edition contains 2017 market size estimates and 2022 forecasts for 21 different parts of the process that might be outsourced, including:
- Chemistry Services Market, 2017-2022
- Building Blocks Outsourcing Market, 2017-2022
- Compound Synthesis Market, 2017-2022
- Library Construction Market, 2017-2022
- Process Research Market, 2017-2022
- Biology Services Market, 2017-2022
- Protein Expression Market, 2017-2022
- Structural Analysis Market, 2017-2022
- Target Validation Market, 2017-2022
- Pathways Analysis Market, 2017-2022
- Screening Services Market, 2017-2022
- Assay Development Market, 2017-2022
- Primary Screening Market, 2017-2022
- Secondary Screening Market, 2017-2022
- Lead Optimization Market, 2017-2022
- Early ADMET Market, 2017-2022
- Analogues Creation Market, 2017-2022
- Computational Support Market, 2017-2022
- Other Services Market, 2017-2022
The drug discovery process is long, arduous and costly, which has driven outsourcing in this field. The first phase is discovery of a lead compound, a molecule that affects biological function by binding to a target protein or nucleic acid in a way that is useful for treatment of disease. The process by which molecules are identified for their therapeutic value involves synthesis and analysis of many derivatives of the original leads. There are several steps in the drug discovery process including hit confirmation, lead generation, lead optimization, and other studies. Drug discovery is a high-cost, risky business because only a fraction of the therapeutic targets selected for study will actually yield products that achieve regulatory approval by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
Since the last edition of Kalorama's report on the outsourcing of discovery of novel compounds in the pharmaceutical industry, the industry has seen dramatic change. Pharmaceutical companies facing cutbacks in R&D budgets and new demands for novel products need to outsource aspects of their operations. Core functions once kept in-house such as the discovery of potential new drugs are now commonly outsourced.