Innovation and New Drug Development

Abstract

It has been postulated that there are four pathways to pharmaceutical innovation: the empirical pathway, that of chemical modification, the rational pathway and that achieved by serendipidity (Cox, Millane and Styles, 1975; Styles and Cox, 1977; Polon, 1982). Therefore a successful research portfolio will usually incorporate aspects of some or all of these strategies (Berde, 1976).