Applications of Pharmacogenomics in Drug Discovery

The last decade has seen the increasing use of genetics and genomics tools in the pharmaceutical industry, and much of this use has been in the drug discovery process. These tools are now becoming part of the standard discovery armamentarium and are being used across a range of areas from novel target identification to early predictors of intersubject variability. As with many innovations in the drug discovery process, the true value of pharmacogenomics will take many years to determine, as the new range of molecularly targeted and assessed compounds go through development. The expectation is that the use of the techniques described in this chapter will reverse the current trend of high drug failure rates and hence ensure that the next wave of innovative medicines reaches the waiting patient population.