Drug Discovery Resources
Drug Hunter Resources | Drug Discovery Websites | Drug Discovery Journals | Drug Discovery Books | Drug Discovery Publications
Drug Hunter Resources
Drug Hunter is a growing, constantly updated repository of comprehensive yet easy-to-read drug discovery resources and references. We’re here so that professionals entering the field won’t need to read dozens of books just to get started.
We recommend checking out:
Here are some of the most popular resources on our site:
This page also lists other useful resources for drug discovery professionals while we continue to build drughunter.com for you.
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Drug Discovery Websites and Factual Online Resources
If you have a suggestion that we’ve missed, feel free to reach out to dennis@drughunter.com.
| Name | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Guide to Pharmacology | Pharmacology Database | The IUPHAR/BPS Guide to Pharmacology is an excellent reference website containing details on various classes of drug targets, ligands, and diseases. |
| Assay Guidance Manual | Pharmacology eBook | The Assay Guidance Manual is the ultimate reference for details surrounding assays for biological activity. Maintained by Eli Lilly scientists and the NCATS, it's widely regarded as the "tome" for in vitro pharmacology. |
| drugbank.com | Drug Database | Drugbank.com is a convenient secondary database to look up drug properties, references, etc. when starting a search on an investigational or clinical molecule. |
| DrugCentral | Drug property database | DrugCentral has a searchable database of drugs with certain annotated properties from the literature and calculated properties. |
| FDA Drug Labels | FDA Drug Labels | The FDA is ultimately the most trustworthy and reliable source of any drug-related information online. The website is actually very easy to search and navigate, and links to all the primary data you need for approved drugs. The FDA has some online tools to do deep searches on all labels as well. |
| clinicaltrials.gov | Clinical Trials Database | The US NIH's Clinical Trials database is a powerful tool to find primary data and status updates on investigational molecules. I often search molecule IDs using "other terms". |
| clinicaltrialsregister.eu | Clinical Trials Database | A similar database for clinical trials conducted in the EU |
| PDB | Protein crystal structure database | The PDB is an incredible trove of highly curated structural information and links to primary references. Whenever I start a new target, I look through as many PDB codes of related protein-inhibitor complexes (if available) as possible to understand what I'm physically dealing with. |
| FDA Orange Book | Drug patent and properties database | The FDA Orange Book contains information about everything related to drugs that have been patented, including expiration dates on APIs, formulations, etc. |
| PATENTSCOPE | Worldwide patent database | The WIPO patent database is the most comprehensive searchable source for original patents online. |
| bindingdb.org | Binding data and co-crystal structure database | Bindingdb.org is a highly curated bank of binding data extracted from publications and patents and crystal structure annotations. It's a great place to start to find previously identified inhibitors for a target class. |
| Binding MoaD | Co-crystal structural database | MoaD ("Mother of all Databases") is a highly curated subset of the PDB of every high-quality example of protein-ligand binding. It is easily searchable with chemical substructures for ligands. |
| chemicalprobes.org | Chemical probe database | The chemical probes database is a high-quality manually curated set of compounds with more trustworthy biological activity. Before starting a biological study it is good to check for a curated tool here - the literature is replete with time-wasting bad actors. |
| PubChem | Molecule database | PubChem is maintained by the NIH, and contains comprehensive links on literature, patents, assays, etc. on any given compound. |
| Withdrawn | Database of withdrawn drugs | Withdrawn is a useful, curated database of drugs that have been withdrawn for various reasons. A very valuable educational source for what to be careful of and why. |
| SwissBioisostere | Isostere search | SwissBioisostere is a useful brainstorming tool that suggests isosteric replacements for a given input. |
| GPCR database | GPCR database | GPCRDB is a database on everything about GPCRs, with tools including sequence alignment and ligand sites. |
| PKI database | Kinase inhibitor database | PKIDB is a database collecting all tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in clinical trials. |
| MRC Kinase Profiling | TKI activity database | The MRC database has selectivity/activity data for a large number of known kinase inhibitors. |
| UniProt | Protein sequence information | UniProt provides useful tools to conduct sequence alignments and similarity searches between proteins of interest. |
| Rxlist | Drug information database | Rxlist is a more easily searchable and readable database of drug properties (symptoms, trial information, etc.) extracted from drug labels. |
| BioCom | CRO Directory | Biocom is a trade group of industry suppliers that maintains a directory of suppliers that can be useful when looking for partners. |
| Pharmaceutical Outsourcing | CRO Directory | This page has a comprehensive list of potential partners for the drug development process, though it is not the easiest to navigate. |
| CDEK | Clinical experience database | CDEK is an open database of information on clinical candidates, with trial dates and links out to other databases. |
| Cortellis | Database of investigational and approved drug information | Cortellis is well-annotated commercial database of information on everything drug-related, including forecast annual sales, patents, competitors, etc. |
| Citeline | Database of clinical development information | Citeline (Trialtrove, etc.) is a commercial database of information on clinical programs with information on clinical sites and investigators, patient enrollment, etc. useful for preparing for development issues well in advance. |
| KLIFS | Kinase Structural Database | A searchable database of kinase ligands with links to their PDBs. |
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Drug Discovery Journals
This list is not exhaustive (there’s literally hundreds in our team RSS feed) but this is a subjective list of where to find the most useful drug discovery articles for one entering the field. Experts all have their own list based on their therapeutic area(s) and focus areas. This doesn’t include major general publications such as Nature, Science, PNAS, or Cell, where the focus is not on drug discovery in particular, though key drug discovery papers will appear there.
| Journal | Area | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Medicinal Chemistry Reviews | Small Molecule Drug Discovery | MCR is an annual series that contains detailed drug discovery stories and reviews from leaders in the field. It contains numerous must-read articles every year. |
| Annual Reports in Medicinal Chemistry | Small Molecule Drug Discovery | ARMC was the spiritual predecessor to MCR before ACS launched MCR. |
| Nature Reviews Drug Discovery | Drug Discovery | NRDD contains articles of wide scope and high important on key topics in drug discovery, including for both small and large molecules, and other modalities. |
| J. Med. Chem. | Small Molecule Drug Discovery | JMC contains case studies of high impact small molecule drug discovery programs and important reviews. |
| Molecular Cancer Therapeutics | Small and Large Molecule Drug Discovery | Because new modalities such as biologics and cell therapies are often tested in cancer first, MCT is a great source for first disclosures of drugs with new mechanisms of action. |
| ACS Med. Chem. Lett. | Small Molecule Drug Discovery | AMCL contains timely short communications on high impact small molecule discovery programs. |
| Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. | Small Molecule Drug Discovery | BMCL contains short communications on interesting small molecule discovery programs, often with interesting structures. BMCL Digests are also great reviews on timely topics. |
| Bioorg. Med. Chem. | Small Molecule Drug Discovery | BMC contains longer articles on drug discovery programs and many European and Japanese companies' clinical candidates can be found here. |
| Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics | Pharmacology | JPET contains pharmacological details on drug compounds, and often interesting mechanisms of action are disclosed here. |
| Drug Metabolism and Disposition | ADMET | DMD often contains interesting new insights into how drugs are metabolized and lead to their effects in vivo. |
| New England Journal of Medicine | Clinical Data | NEJM is the leading publication for clinical data, and high profile trial data is often released here first. |
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Drug Discovery Books
While nothing serves as a replacement for industry experience, a few books serve as useful references and offer glimpses into what real world drug discovery is like. Here is a list of books we recommend as generally useful technical references or insightful introductions to drug discovery beyond any single technical field.
If you have a suggestion that we’ve missed, feel free to reach out to dennis@drughunter.com.
| Book | Area | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Preclinical Development Handbook | Drug Development | A comprehensive guide to preclinical drug development, covering pharmacokinetics, metabolism, pharmaceutics, and toxicology. |
| Off-Target | Toxicology | A useful handbook on off-targets, how to assay for them, and why. |
| Evaluation of Enzyme Inhibitors in Drug Discovery | Biochemistry | Copeland's fundamentals of biochemistry tailored to a drug discovery audience. |
| Assay Guidance Manual | Pharmacology eBook | The Assay Guidance Manual is the ultimate reference for details surrounding assays for biological activity. Maintained by Eli Lilly scientists and the NCATS, it is widely regarded as the tome for in vitro pharmacology. |
| Handbook of Pharmaceutical Salts | Pharmaceutical Science | A useful guide to drug salt forms, salt selection, and regulatory considerations. |
| Lead Generation | Drug Discovery | A comprehensive two-part series on how to identify starting chemical matter. |
| The Organic Chemistry of Enzyme-Catalyzed Reactions | Biochemistry | Mechanisms of how enzymes conduct their reactions, and how enzyme inhibitors work. |
| Goodman and Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics | Pharmacology | The ultimate introductory guide to how known drugs work, and a useful reference when evaluating new pathways or targets. |
| Billion-Dollar Molecule and The Antidote | Case Study | How Vertex formed and became the giant it is today, a great real-world look at what drug discovery can be like. |
| The Emperor of All Maladies | Industry Context | The long history of cancer treatment and how broader societal movements (policy, regulatory affairs, clinical culture) influences medicine. Essential reading to understand the broader universe surrounding drug discovery. |
| Twisting Fate: My Journey with BRCA―from Breast Cancer Doctor to Patient and Back | Industry Context | A leading oncologist's personal experience dealing with BRCA-mutant breast cancer as a patient. Insightful, moving, and thought-provoking, it is a must-read to help understand both patient and physician perspectives, and appreciate why better drugs are needed. |
| The Great American Drug Deal | Industry Context | This book quickly explains pharma industry structure and the incentives of participants in the US health system, and concisely makes the argument that drug R&D one of the best societal investments we make. |
| Science Lessons: What the Business of Biotech Taught Me About Management | Case Study | An early Amgen insider's story of how Amgen began. Highlights many key traits of successful drug discovery programs, such as focusing on major unmet medical need. |
| The Pharmagellan Guide to Biotech Forecasting and Valuation | Finance | What is your research program worth? An introduction to how to assess and value research-based biotechs, which provides essential context to prioritizing programs. |
| Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech | Case Study | A history of the founding of Genentech and the biotech industry, which is useful to understanding what it takes to break into new therapeutic space and how new modalities find their place in the industry. |
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Drug Discovery Publications
Coming soon…
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