The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7296 p516
24 April 2004

An overview of drug discovery for students or polymaths

‘Drugs: from discovery to approval’, by Rick Ng. Pp xii+355. Price £35.50. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons; 2003. ISBN 0 471 60150 0

It would be a tall order to cover the full scope of this book as suggested by the title in just 350 pages, and thus no attempt has been made to cover it in any great depth. Instead, the author has attempted to provide a concise guide to the subject which would be understandable to the intelligent adult with a good education. The text is readable and clearly written. When an aside is necessary, the author has maintained the narrative flow by the useful device of “exhibits”, usually illustrative examples from the scientific literature. Workers already in the various fields covered are unlikely to find anything new in their specific specialty, but will perhaps recognise more fully their place on the drug research, development and marketing spectrum.

The text is, rightly for this type of coverage, not overburdened with references but each chapter has a list for further reading. In the traditional areas of research and development, these references are generally to standard textbooks, but for matters of regulation and regulations web addresses are often cited, which is a useful way for immediate follow-up of a particular idea or query.

I would disagree with the author’s classification of the traditional methods of drug discovery as “irrational” and I hope this terminology does not catch on. Otherwise the book can be recommended for the general reader (student or polymath) who wishes to have an overview of the subject.


Joseph Chamberlain

Joseph Chamberlain is an independent science writer and consultant, and a former editor of The Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology. Formerly, he had a 22-year career in industrial pharmaceutical research