To realize the potential of the genome for identifying candidate drugs we must move beyond individual genes and proteins. The signalling pathways in cells provide the right level for such analyses. Drug discovery is a tough business scientifically, the traditional steps taking nearly a decade. In this article we are concerned only with the very beginning of the process, the identification of a target for a new drug. It is this step, the choice of a gene product of clinical relevance, that is the greatest impediment to expanding the pharmaceutical arsenal. In the United States, only 20-30 new chemical entities are approved as drugs each year, and the picture is much the same in Europe. Of these, only a quarter act on targets not already hit by an existing drug. Why has the deciphering of the 25,000 or so genes in the human genome not swelled the ranks of new targets?
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