Discovery of new anti-cancer agents.

Anticancer drug discovery has changed fundamentally owing to recent progress in basic research. Historically, the discovery of potential new drugs for the treatment of cancer has largely relied on large-scale random screening. Although several useful agents have become available, sometimes after the development of chemical analogues of the original OhitO, this approach has generally been disappointing in terms of the efficacy/toxicity balance. To date, a range of cancer-specific molecular and biological drug targets are available providing opportunities for the design and discovery of specific anti-cancer agents with better tumour selectivity, and therefore less toxicity, than conventional agents. Among the many innovative approaches currently explored in pre-clinical and clinical research and development programs are inhibition of angiogenesis and metastasis, tumour vaccines/immunotherapy and gene therapy approaches. Several promising drug development projects are currently underway in these areas. The advent of innovative anticancer agents also has important consequences for the organisation of new drug development. Traditional drug development methodologies are often not appropriate for agents having completely new modes of action. The design of new drug development templates for such agents therefore has high priority in anti-cancer drug development organisations.