Drug Discovery TodayPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-12-17DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104588
Michael S. Kinch , Aayan Alawi , Tyler Schwartz , Zachary Kraft
{"title":"Geopolitical contributions to pharmaceutical innovation","authors":"Michael S. Kinch , Aayan Alawi , Tyler Schwartz , Zachary Kraft","doi":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104588","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104588","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>An analysis of the sources of new experimental drugs in the 21st century reveals a dramatic change in the location of organizations involved in new drug discovery. Overall, the number of new experimental drugs has risen robustly over the past 25 years. Whereas American private sector institutions have a long track record of leading the world in introducing new drugs to the clinic, China undertook a concerted effort during the mid-2010s to increase discovery efforts and now equals the USA. The growth of Chinese contributions is remarkable and reflects efforts by both the public and private sector. The rapid rise of China raises questions about future decision-making and leadership of the larger pharmaceutical enterprise.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":301,"journal":{"name":"Drug Discovery Today","volume":"31 1","pages":"Article 104588"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145792855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Drug Discovery TodayPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-12-11DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104583
Chinmay Shukla , Irwin Tendler , Neil Kumar , Andrew W. Lo
{"title":"Genetic Targets, Financial Creativity: BridgeBio’s Model for Sustainable Drug Development","authors":"Chinmay Shukla , Irwin Tendler , Neil Kumar , Andrew W. Lo","doi":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104583","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104583","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Biotech drug development is a high-risk, capital-intensive endeavor, requiring a balance between scientific advancement and financial reward. In this case study, we present BridgeBio’s portfolio-based operating model, which integrates genetically validated targets with operational discipline and innovative financial structuring to enable rapid and scalable development. We situate BridgeBio’s approach within the broader landscape of biotech operating archetypes and contrast it with more traditional approaches (e.g., single-asset, platform-based, venture-creation) models. This case study contributes to ongoing discussions about how portfolio-based strategies can improve the resilience and efficiency of biopharmaceutical innovation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":301,"journal":{"name":"Drug Discovery Today","volume":"31 1","pages":"Article 104583"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145751475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Drug Discovery TodayPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-12-03DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104567
Sarine Markossian , Hannah M. Baskir , Abigail C. Grossman , Suchismita Chandran , Shyam Rele , Matthew D. Hall , Rommie E. Amaro , Alexander Tropsha , Alexey V. Zakharov
{"title":"In silico Drug Discovery: Bridging the Gaps in Preclinical Translation","authors":"Sarine Markossian , Hannah M. Baskir , Abigail C. Grossman , Suchismita Chandran , Shyam Rele , Matthew D. Hall , Rommie E. Amaro , Alexander Tropsha , Alexey V. Zakharov","doi":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104567","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104567","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":301,"journal":{"name":"Drug Discovery Today","volume":"31 1","pages":"Article 104567"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145686683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Linear triazenes: Versatile scaffolds for chemical biology and drug design","authors":"Ahammed Ameen Thottasseri , Anju Agnes Tom , Deepthi Ramesh , Ramkishore Matsa , Tharanikkarasu Kannan","doi":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104574","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104574","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Analyzing the advances in and emergence of novel triazenes is pivotal in medicinal chemistry. Triazenes exhibit biological activity through alkylation, redox processes, or interactions with biomolecules, producing synergistic effects enabling the synthesis of derivatives with tailored pharmacokinetic profiles and enhanced activities. Although cyclic triazenes are well studied, research on linear triazenes has largely focused on their anticancer potential, leaving other therapeutic areas less explored. Given the need for chemotypes with modular synthesis and favorable pharmacology, linear triazenes warrant renewed attention. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the chemistry, biological activity, and structure–activity relationships of linear triazenes, highlighting their emerging roles in targeted therapies, fragment-based design, and bifunctional modalities, as reported since 2000.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":301,"journal":{"name":"Drug Discovery Today","volume":"31 1","pages":"Article 104574"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145695677","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Drug Discovery TodayPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-12-17DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104589
Tomasz Szostek, Daniel Szulczyk
{"title":"From obstacle to design advantage: activity cliff aware modeling for small-molecule drug discovery","authors":"Tomasz Szostek, Daniel Szulczyk","doi":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104589","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104589","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Activity cliffs (ACs), defined as near structural neighbors with large potency differences, provide high-value information on structure–activity relationship discontinuities that medicinal chemists have leveraged for years. Yet modern artificial intelligence-based discovery frameworks often smooth this signal, yielding confident but unrealistic proposals. We present a three-layer roadmap that treats ACs as a first-class design feature: representation is tuned to expose AC signal during pretraining and sampling; evaluation focuses on steep regions with early recognition, pair-level retrieval, and calibrated uncertainty under fair, series-aware splits; and <em>de novo</em> generation is steered toward the best candidates. Integrated as a closed, self-improving loop, this framework helps practitioners build AC-aware drug design tools.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":301,"journal":{"name":"Drug Discovery Today","volume":"31 1","pages":"Article 104589"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145792878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Drug Discovery TodayPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2026-01-08DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104593
The DISRUPT-DS Industry Roundtable
{"title":"Generative AI in pharmaceutical R&D: From large language models to AI agents to regulation","authors":"The DISRUPT-DS Industry Roundtable","doi":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104593","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104593","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Generative AI (GenAI) is reshaping pharmaceutical R&D, offering transformative potential across research and development. Applications of GenAI include scientific insight generation, mining large biological datasets to study diseases, molecule design, clinical document drafting, and many others. The DISRUPT-DS roundtable, a forum that brings together data science leaders from major pharmaceutical companies, has recently conducted an analysis of GenAI in R&D. Here, the roundtable participants report key findings from this effort. Specifically, we discuss areas that are regulatory-relevant, including GenAI-powered document drafting and statistical programming, and we explore emerging topics, such as AI agents and foundation models. The goal of this work is to provide an industry-wide perspective of where GenAI is today and how it might evolve in the future.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":301,"journal":{"name":"Drug Discovery Today","volume":"31 1","pages":"Article 104593"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145948208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Computational approaches enhance the design of molecular glue degraders for undruggable proteins","authors":"Sirishantha G.M.A. Deshani , Gunarathna R.D.S. Madushani , Karunaratne Veranja , Kumar Vinit , Hao Ge-Fei","doi":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104577","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104577","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Most proteins remain ‘undruggable’ by traditional approaches, which are unable to engage targets because of a lack of well-defined binding pockets, causing a bottleneck in drug discovery. Molecular glue degraders (MGDs) have emerged as a promising therapeutic strategy for targeting previously undruggable proteins. However, despite their potential, only a few MGDs have received FDA approval, highlighting gaps in off-target effects, drug resistance, and substrate availability. Here, we discuss recent MGD breakthroughs driven by the integration of structure-based computational approaches and AI platforms, which have accelerated MGD design with improved accuracy. Looking ahead, advances in quantum computing and AI-based generative models might open pathways to innovative treatments, targeting diseases once considered incurable.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":301,"journal":{"name":"Drug Discovery Today","volume":"31 1","pages":"Article 104577"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145706691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Drug Discovery TodayPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-12-17DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104586
Bei Wang , Yiqian Ren , Xianghua Xiao , Xianning Liu , Yani Wang , Yao Wang
{"title":"An emerging MSC-exosome delivery strategy: injectable temperature-sensitive hydrogels encapsulate exosomes for enhanced therapeutic efficacy","authors":"Bei Wang , Yiqian Ren , Xianghua Xiao , Xianning Liu , Yani Wang , Yao Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104586","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104586","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-derived exosomes (MSC-EXOs), nanovesicles carrying bioactive molecules, hold potential for tissue repair, but face targeting and rapid clearance challenges. Hydrogels, bioabsorbable scaffolds comprising 3D hydrophilic polymers with high biocompatibility and some mechanical strength, offer a promising solution. Injectable thermosensitive hydrogels, transitioning from liquid to gel at body temperature, enable localized, sustained EXO delivery by forming biocompatible reservoirs at injury sites. These hydrogels enhance EXO retention and therapeutic efficacy through controlled release. In this review, we discuss MSC-EXO biology, hydrogel design (gelation mechanisms and fabrication), and applications of EXO-encapsulated thermosensitive hydrogels, emphasizing injectability, controlled release, and improved site-specific dosing. Future priorities involve refining EXO purification, optimizing hydrogel porosity and mechanical tunability, and assessing long-term safety and efficacy for clinical translation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":301,"journal":{"name":"Drug Discovery Today","volume":"31 1","pages":"Article 104586"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145792862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Promoting sustainable pharmacy for tackling environmental pharmaceutical pollution","authors":"Iker Egaña , Vladimir Akhrimenko , Mirari Ayerbe , Eider Abasolo , Unax Lertxundi , Gorka Orive","doi":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104559","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104559","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Pharmaceuticals are essential for health but are increasingly impacting the environment, affecting ecosystems and human health, and contributing to biodiversity loss, antimicrobial resistance, and climate change. Active pharmaceutical ingredients designed for stability and biological activity, along with excipients and packaging materials, contaminate air, soil, and water globally. To address the issue of pharmaceutical pollution, the establishment of a sustainable pharmacy framework is required, beginning with drug development and the education of future professionals. In this article, we present a critical overview of initiatives already implemented and those emerging that aim to achieve a more sustainable pharmacy. We followed a cradle-to-grave life-cycle approach to identify the role of pharmacy professionals, including drug developers, in enabling mitigation measures for pharmaceutical pollution. Some of the emerging initiatives for reducing pharmaceutical pollution that were identified include a benign-by-design approach for drug development, the adoption of a One Health approach in healthcare systems, and advancing regulatory frameworks and education of healthcare professionals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":301,"journal":{"name":"Drug Discovery Today","volume":"31 1","pages":"Article 104559"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145627179","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Drug Discovery TodayPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-11-27DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104562
Ka-Shi Nozomi Choi, Wei-Bo Liu
{"title":"Driving the future of iPS-cell-based therapy in Japan: government strategies, regulatory review and clinical development","authors":"Ka-Shi Nozomi Choi, Wei-Bo Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104562","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.drudis.2025.104562","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Japan has long been positioned as a global leader in regenerative medicine, and a critical moment occurred in 2025 when the world’s first regulatory submission for an induced pluripotent stem (iPS)-cell-based therapy was filed. In this article, we detail the Japanese government’s strategic investment in regenerative medicine since the early 2000s, and elucidate the advancement of regulatory guidelines tailored to the unique characteristics of regenerative medical products (RMPs) and designed to ensure safety while accelerating commercialization. We also provide an extensive summary of the latest clinical studies using iPS-cell-based therapies conducted by Japanese companies and academic institutions, as well as the current landscape of corporate involvement in this field. In addition, we address the challenges facing the development of RMPs by discussing the withdrawal cases that occurred in Japan last year.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":301,"journal":{"name":"Drug Discovery Today","volume":"31 1","pages":"Article 104562"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145627097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}